The Confederacy of New Vegas
by Verpine
Summary: The Courier has taken over New Vegas, expelling the Legion and the NCR from the Mojave.  Now, she establishes her country, and defends it against new and old foes.
1. Prologue:  Wrong Traveler

**Author's Foreword**

_I have always had a lot of trouble with the endings for Fallout: New Vegas, and this is essentially a continuation of the Independent ending. I would do a Mr. House ending, because I think he would make a better leader than anything that I could be (or my character I should say, since this isn't a self-insert, my character just thinks _similarly_ to me (for obvious reasons, such as the fact that I am writing her character)), but I love the Brotherhood of Steel way to much for that (even the ones that are jerks, like the Outcasts, or most of the Mojave chapter)._

_ I have never played any Fallout game other than Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas (and all of their DLC's (except of course for Lonesome Road, HURRY UP BETHESDA)) but I have a passing familiarity with the entire franchise due to an excessive amount of reading of the Fallout Vault Wikia page. I will focus on events from the beginning of Project Purity to the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, and this story will focus primarily on the events after the establishment of an Independent Mojave._

_ Also, the Lone Wanderer will be showing up, but not for a LONG time, so hopefully I will be able to keep this going. However, I only have the next few chapters planned out and will eventually be stuck until I can get and finish Lonesome Road. Chapter generation will also be slowed down by the appearance of college._

_ On a side note, my other stories are currently on hiatus. I am simply not in a Fire Emblem mood right now, and when I was, I could not write anything due to the fact that my old computer hated me. That and I only got this really old version of Word about a week and a half ago. This is just for the few people that like both Fallout and Fire Emblem and may have read and maybe even liked my stories about Fire Emblem._

_ Also, I am really bad at naming people, places, and things, so even the chapter names will be horrible. I apologize for my lack of creative thinking._

_ I am very happy to receive criticism (both constructive and not) and am willing to listen to pretty much anything you may have to say about this story. If anything is ever wrong, PLEASE, feel free to tell me so in a review, and I will fix it as soon as I can. I don't care if it is a typo, poor sentence fluency, misplaced information, grammatical issues, redundancy of sentences (I went to the I went to the...), or whatever. I am posting these as rough drafts that can be edited by people who are not familiar with my writing style (such as it is)._

_ Yes I like parentheses, sue me._

**Prologue; Wrong Traveler**

"And there goes another filthy rich caravan," muttered Nabrun to his raider gang. The little group of vicious killers was located near a bend in the road just west of Nipton. Normally, it would have been an excellent ambush spot, with the raiders holding the high ground and able to quickly surround any caravans or travelers. However, the presence of two of those newly upgraded Securitrons had deterred any chance of being able to take out the group of three brahmin and half dozen traders and regular guards.

Nabrun was having a bad day. Really it had been a bad week. Or a bad month. Pickings had been scarce in the Mojave since the second battle of Hoover Dam, and the number of stray, unprotected caravans or travelers had decreased so much that they were practically non existent. Most of the caravans in the Mojave had taken to keeping the new and improved Securitrons on for guard duty ever since that Courier had sprung from nowhere to take the entire Mojave by storm. She had essentially created a new nation almost overnight and it had been an instant superpower. No one knew that there had been so many Securitrons at her disposal, only a few hundred had ever been seen on the Strip or wandering the wastes before, and the sudden arrival of _thousands _of the robots had been an astonishing surprise for everyone in the wastes.

And it was not revealed until the second battle of Hoover Dam and her nearly single handed defeat of the Legion. Her arrival with her army, and her personal execution of the Legate and newly crowned Caesar II had shocked the remnants of the former southwestern United States. Then she had turned around and convinced (by way of her Securitrons ) the awed NCR troops to run back to Republic with their tails between their legs. Most of the regular troopers and a good sized percentage of the officers had been happy to just go home to their families. Many of them had also had personal experience with the Courier, and had been helped or saved by her, and she had become a popular figure among the NCR's people. In fact, that popularity was caused largely by the NCR's huge propaganda machine, which was trying to encourage enlistment and to motivate the troops already fighting. The NCR military had been expecting her to aid in the defense of the dam, and had initially been pleasantly surprised by the arrival of three hundred Securitrons, Brotherhood of Steel Paladins, Boomer artillery support, and air support from the Boomers ancient B-29 bomber and an advanced ex-Enclave vertibird.

What they had _not _been expecting was to be forced to abandon the Mojave and sign a "peace treaty" that recognized the nation of New Vegas as an independent country.

The first few days after the battle had been a nightmare for any raider gangs in the Mojave, as thousands of NCR troopers marched back to the Mojave Outpost, shooting at any geckos, radscorpians, coyotes, or raiders that ventured anywhere near any of the roads. However, things had only gotten worse as hundreds of trigger-happy mono-wheeled robots began trundling throughout the _entire_ desert. Nabrun didn't know how many other raider gangs had been wiped out, but he knew that he and his little group of six had been lucky so far, as they had hidden in an old cave a little bit north of Nipton that had gone unnoticed by the roving robots.

Even after the hordes of robots had rolled all across the desert to who-knows-and-who-cares-where, the new caravan company of the, "Confederation of New Vegas", the Mojave Trading Company (MTC), had started moving along the roads. And they had Securitrons guarding them, as well as the usual mercenaries and armed traders. Nabrun hadn't been anywhere near the Dam when the (very brief) battle had broken out, but fighting had taken place over most of the Mojave, and he had seen a group of five Securitrons release a barrage of missiles at a large patrol of thirty Legion soldiers about halfway between Nipton and Novac, and he hadn't seen much left of the Legionariesbut an unnatural rain of body parts.

He had taken one look at the red mist swirling around with clouds of dust and other... debris and decided to not make the same mistake, and told his gang to stay out of sight whenever they saw one of those wandering death machines. Unfortunately for the raiders, that only left the other big caravans, such as the Crimson Caravan Company and the Gun Runners, as most of the other small caravans in the area had been driven out of business or destroyed in the months leading up to the renewed confrontation on the Colorado River. However, those caravans had been the ones to stay away from before, as they were normally heavily guarded by mercenaries. The few remaining raider gangs in the area had been forced to take on the much tougher caravans, and more and more raiders had been killed.

Nabrun wasn't educated by and stretch of the imagination, but he wasn't stupid either. He knew that the time of the raider was over in the Mojave, and he would either need to get a respectable job (fat chance) or move his gang out of the Mojave. To prepare for his mad rush to head south, where hopefully he could find some weak tribals to enslave, or a small village to take over, he began marching his gang south to Nipton, staying nearby the road in the hope of finding an unguarded caravan to take over and use the pack brahmin to carry their excess equipment and various "things", ranging from trophies taken from people they had killed, to bits of armor to repair their already haphazard attire. They had had little luck so far in the slow**, **dangerousmarch to the new border south of Nipton, and had only barely been able to keep feeding themselves by killing the mutated animals in their way.

And now another caravan had walked right by them, completely unaware that his gang had even been there.

He sighed and watched the last Securitrons move around the bend and slowly stood up and looked up and down the road to see if anymore were coming. Seeing no one coming, he waved to his gang and started walking down the hillside to the road. They only needed to skirt around the ruins of Nipton now, and then turn south at the old Mojave drive in and they were free from the hordes of robots and that unstoppable Courier that had killed even House.

He looked at his group, and considered himself lucky that he hadn't lost anyone to the hordes of armies that seemed bent on killing all raiders across the Mojave. Virch, his friend since he didn't even know when; Wyla, Virch's lover with her beautiful red hair blending into the desert background; Ax, the crazy guy he had picked up back over by Nelson rolling mindlessly in the blood of dozen NCR soldiers he had killed with a medieval battle axe from some sort of museum; Drew, the closest thing his group had to a medic; Syla, a young, drug crazed girl formerly of the Fiends; and Aarhus, who creeped him out, although he would never admit it.

The group got along fine, albeit a little dysfunctionaly, and would probably do well if they could find some little village or raiding base to join or take over.

Suddenly, up ahead, he saw someone walking along the road.

"Hey, get down get down!" he said quickly to his group. The last few weeks of hiding from rolling super robots had done wonders for the groups willingness to take his orders unquestionably (at least when they weren't in any immediate danger) and their reflexes had improved markedly. The raiders all dove quickly behind an old burned out car and some debris from a landslide along the side of the ravine that the road wound its way through. He nodded to Drew who pulled his sniper rifle from his back and propped it up on the remnants of the passenger side windowsill.

"What do you see?" Nabrun asked in a hiss, his lips nearly salivating with the hope that they might be able to at least take a traveler or two and their gear. Maybe even have whoever it was carry some of their stuff for them.

"Hang on, hang on. Um, its just one person, and... I _think_ its a girl. Yep, I see boobs, definitely a girl. Looks like she's got just a pistol, and maybe, er, wow, that is one shiny rifle. Can I have that rifle she's got Nab? It is a _beaut_!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Drew. Does she look tough?" Nabrun asked excitedly. He hadn't had a woman in almost two months, and he wanted to take this girl alive. He would let the others, minus Virch and Wyla, have a go at her too but only after he was done. But only if she didn't look tough. That crazy Courier's rise to power had been unprecedented and had proven to him that the Legions view of women was probably the stupidest in the universe. And she had proven it for sure when she fought Lanius sword to sword. And filleted his dick with her flaming blade.

All of the stories told about her described her as some sort of giant goddess of warfare, with guns bristling all over her person. She was said to be a giant, something around seven feet tall. Nabrun had assumed that that was just embellishing, as nobody topped six and a half feet since the great war. Lack of food and water, and an excess of radiation had stunted the growth of humans (except for Super Mutants of course, but they were infected by F.E.V. which was different in any case) and very few people even went much over six feet now.

"Naw, she looks like nothin', maybe five four or somethin'. Wow she is _hot_, can I nail her boss? After you of course,"

"Yeah sure, just get down. Wait until she walks through, and jump her on my signal,"

The raiders hunkered down behind the rocks and the car, taking care that they didn't show any part of their bodies to the lone traveler. After a minute or so, Nabrun heard the crunching of gravel as she clambered over another landslide just a few yards down the road from the raider gang. He nodded to his compatriots, signaling them to move the instant he did. He had an old lead pipe clutched in his right hand and a revolver in his left. If everything went well he should get the jump on her with the pipe and bring her to the ground before she could pull a weapon on him. And even if she did, he had the revolver. He wanted this girl alive, but he would settle with her dead if it meant that he wasn't dead. He heard her footsteps coming as she stepped past the old car and continued walking up the road. For the first time he saw the, "shiny rifle" on her back, and realized that it was actually a customized sniper rifle that had grown infamous across the entire Mojave as the bringer of death to anyone who opposed its owner.

It was the Courier's Gobi Campaign Sniper Rifle.

His eyes widened as he realized that the girl in front of him, wearing typical merc' gear, was the actually the newly crowned Queen of the Confederacy of New Vegas. And probably the deadliest living thing west of the Colorado.

She was the Conqueror of the Sierra Madre, the Terror of the Legion, the Nightmare of Deathclaws.

He was just your average raider gang leader.

In a word, his entire group was screwed six different ways.

He, _very_ slowly, began to get up to move around the car and hide on the other side until the warrior demi-goddess had gone on her merry way, when he realized that moving was probably the stupidest thing he could have done. And the worst mistake of his life.

His gang, not realizing who they were about to ambush, all jumped at her as soon as they saw him twitch. Six heavily armed raiders all jumped the lone, unawares girl with blood curdling yells. He didn't even see her move. A rapid series of six bangs leaped out of the barrel of the golden rifle that had suddenly appeared in her hands and was suddenly facing back the way she came.

Six bodies of people who had been his friends fell to the ground around the Courier, each with a single .308 bullet transfixed into their skulls.

He hadn't even moved past the front of the ancient car when he was brought to the ground by immensely powerful hands, and he felt his face smash against the cracked pavement. Blood spluttered out of his mouth as he tried to get away, crawling with the strength of terror pounding through his veins as he lashed out against the woman on his back, squeaks slipping from his throat as he tried to crawl away. Suddenly, he felt a pain hit him just below his kidney and smash him against the bumper of the car that he hadn't quite gotten away from. He looked up and saw a nine millimeter pistol barrel less than two feet from his face and an almost incredulousgrin on the face of the beautiful woman that was about to become his killer. She had a pretty, heart shaped face with full lips that were curled upward in a predator's grin. Her face was nearly perfect honestly, except for a vicious looking trio of scars that ran down her face. The sort of scars that one got after going toe to claw with a Deathclaw or Yau Gaoi, and actually survived the experience.

She ran a hand through her slightly disheveled neck length blonde hair and shook her head, keeping the gun aiming right in between his eyes.

"Did you honestly think I didn't see you coming down the road? Really?" her voice was a melodious tenor, and seemed completely at odds with the laughing but cold green eyes that stared right at his bleeding corpse.

"You know, I've been in your situation before myself. I even took a bullet to the head like you're going to. The one difference is, you won't be getting up,"

The sun was bright over head, and highlighted her wonderous face. The breeze, a constant in the desert wasteland, stirred the blood and sweat on his face as he weakly held up a hand to stop a bullet that would pass through his eyeball and into his brain like it was wet paper. He feebly opened his mouth to surrender when-

A loud bang claimed all he knew.


	2. Reflections

_Authors Note; Before anyone starts thinking I'm some sort of Confederate lover (The American civil war era confederates I mean) I would like to point out several things. 1. A confederacy is a legitimate form of government and is only thought to be directly associated with slavery because of its connotation with the civil war; 2. The United States was a confederacy until 1789, it used the document known as the Articles of Confederation to govern the states as a series of more or less independent countries (they didn't even have the same currency); 3. The Confederacy of New Vegas is only _called_ a confederacy. There shall be an explanation in the chapter, I just don't want people jumping to conclusions that I'm some sort of slave mongerer or something._

_Also, most of this chapter is going to be very boring to people who don't care about the government of the CNV, or what the Confederacy itself consists of in terms of what factions and towns are in it (suffice it to say, the entire in game map except for the Mojave Outpost, as well as a few more towns past the periphery of the map. I give the best description of their locations that I can, but If you really want to know where they are, look on Google Earth or pull out an old fashioned Atlas. I used an Atlas that still thought the U.S.S.R. was in existence, so its not too hard). I have never been to the region, so my descriptions will be more or less following the appearance of the game map, along with some additions that have sprung up since the Courier took over New Vegas. The towns and regions that have also been added to the country will essentially be described as best as I can from online pictures, so anyone who leaves in these towns or has been to them should just know that I am making it all up except for what little I can determine using the good old internet._

**Reflections**

Nicole began to search the bodies of the raiders she had just killed, discovering the usual nasty, half-rotten fingers and ears that were raiders usual trophies. She found several guns and other weapons and tossed most of them into her pack, taking care not to damage the ancient battle axe that one really big brute had been carrying. She had no idea where the maniac had found it, but she knew that it would be good to put into the museum she was putting together in her spare time. It was amazing how many important artifacts could be found by simply roaming the wasteland and searching through buildings. The whole project was mostly a side interest, but it provided her with an excuse to escape from her nursemaids at the Lucky 38.

She couldn't understand why it was so important for Arcade that she remain in Vegas itself all of the time. Yeah sure, centralized control of the rest of the nation and all that, but he and Yes Man could deal with all the usual problems as well as, if not better, than her. Why did crowning herself Queen of the Confederacy make her need to stay in the Lucky 38 to rot? She had been wandering the wastes ever since she was twelve years old! She had even made sure of a line of succession in the (unlikely) event of her death. Her companions had either returned to their homes or had become her ministers of various departments, and she had established a succession with Arcade and Veronica making them her Chief Executive Minister and Minister of Technology (which had become a very important position in the post-apocalyptic world) respectively. As Chief Minister, Arcade had numerous duties piled on top of him, mostly related to reconstruction and trade, as well as being Nicole's deputy and current heir. Veronica, who while currently on an extended diplomatic mission, was focused primarily on research, science, technology, and the establishment of a basic universal education system. At the moment, Arcade was also performing her duties until she could return. She wasn't expected to return for at least another eight months however, and he was beginning to feel the strain.

Raul had become Nicole's de-facto chief Mechanic (not exactly a cabinet position), and Cass had taken a pile of caps to start up a new, currently government owned caravan company. That company, the Mojave Trading Company (MTC) was to be government funded and sponsored until it could pay off the start up loans that Nicole had given it. Even when those loans were paid, Securitrons were to be provided to all caravans for free. She had also limited Yes Man's command structure to only respond to her and her four remaining human (ish in the case of Raul) companions. That prevented other people (if they could fight their way into the 38's Penthouse) from performing the easiest coup of all time and simply ordering all of the Securitrons to hunt her down.

Arcade would argue with her until his voice was hoarse, saying things like "That plan helps, sure, but it isn't the point. We need to do everything we can to help the people," or, "Why stay a wanderer? You can focus on establishing the independence of the Mojave here at home, safe from those blasted Deathclaws!" or, "Did you notice Freeside on your way through to the Strip? Still a ruin,". She had kept him in the Lucky 38 as her personal physician, Chief Minister, and sounding board for the changes she was working on making; but It was really irritating that he would _constantly_ try to get her to fix everything NOW. You have to be slow and careful when establishing a new order on an anarchic land. People can only get used to so many changes at once, and any radical reordering of the world in which they lived in would cause anger at her new regime, and she could not afford resentment this early in the new nation.

Fortunately, she was the Mobs darling at the moment, as public safety and the standard of living had gone up exponentially since she had combined the might of her Securitron army with the Boomers and Brotherhood. With the Strip still providing her with a powerful economic base, and the Dam powering the Strip, she had everything she needed to begin forging a new powerful, technic, civilization.

Things needed fixing, she recognized that, and that had been one of the main reasons that she had killed House and kept the NCR from annexing the Mojave, or, God help her, actually let the _Legion _take over. House would have been an excellent leader, but there was no way she was going to kill the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood, a group that had accepted her as family (eventually). The NCR might even have been effective at uniting the old American South West together, but only if the leadership could get their collective heads out of their collective butts long enough to determine that that smell they were smelling was _not _new vegetation growing without radiation.

If one thing was certain however, it was that the Legion was the worst way to go about establishing a new regime upon the ashes of the Old World. Despite Caesars constant mumblings about reading books and following the model of the ancient Roman Empire, he seemed to forget that the Roman Empire had been created by a genius of military and political strategy and had fallen because of incompetent rulers, or because the competent ones had stopped raising the pay grade of the Praetorian Guard. Which of course left the Guard to kill the current emperor and replace him with another that gave them more. He had no real long term plan in place, and the Legion could not held together for more than a decade or so after his death in any case.

So she had set out on creating her own new nation between the remnants of the Legion to the east and the retreating NCR to the west. In theory, the Confederation of New Vegas was actually a totalitarian dictatorship where she reserved all rights of law, civilian, and military power in the country. She could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and however she wanted it to be done, it would be done. Problems would frequently arise in such a dictatorship, Nicole was a good enough student of History to know that, such as a buildup of resentment for being unable to make the country's decisions and the fact that few dictatorships work out as long term governments, such as the Legion itself. If a popular leader is in place for an extended period of time, and that leader has full authority of government, than it is unlikely a later leader would be able to maintain the popularity of the first. In order to circumvent these problems as much as she could, she made herself the Queen of New Vegas, and set the country up as a monarchy. While that didn't solve the problem, it at least kept the title in the family (whenever she got around to _having_ a family. For the moment, she had made her remaining companions her chief ministers and political deputies). She even intended to move to a more representative form of government in the near future, when everything had settled down and she had reconstruction well on its way. She wasn't arrogant enough to believe that her solution was the best solution, and it remained to be seen if it would be a solution at all, but it was the best idea she had. The Great War had knocked the survivors back almost to the stone age, but left them with the technology and weaponry of an advanced, modern era, and needed a strong reigning arm to keep them from devolving even further.

Besides that there was also the fact that the theory of the written constitution (basically formed around the peace treaty with the NCR) of the CNV (Confederation of New Vegas) was rarely exercised.

In _practice_, the CNV was a confederation of more or less independent towns and settlements, given large amounts of caps to use as a budget to promote trade, industry, and construction. People could basically go on living as they had been for decades, with minimal interference from the all powerful central government. She had even allowed any towns that did not want to be a part of the confederacy to not join it if they so wished. She had _strongly encouraged_ the various towns and factions throughout the Mojave to join, and very few people had had a problem with the new defenses that she provided each settlement, helping the towns focus on growth and reconstruction as well as the establishment of a basic industrial and educational core for the young country. The _very _sharp Sword of Damocles fashioned of thousands upon thousands of upgraded Securitrons had been a nice bit of encouragement to the few who had not wanted to join.

She had not been proud of the fact that she had strong-armed the new government upon its people, but it had been necessary to create something for the government to govern.

In any event, the towns of Primm, Goodsprings, Sloan, Jacobstown, Westside, Freeside, Boulder City (what was left of it), Novac, Nipton (what was left of it), Nelson (what was left of it), and Searchlight (again, what was left of it), all joined the CNV. The Boomers, Great Kahns, and the Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel also joined the CNV. The Brotherhood had also sent messages to the other official Brotherhood organizations, most notably the original Chapter to the West, and the semi-exiled Brotherhood of D.C. that had recently fought the last remnants of the Enclave, to join in Alliance with the CNV for the preservation of humanity. The original Brotherhood at the Lost Hills Bunker was still debating the proposition, and the messenger to the east had not arrived in Capital Wasteland yet. Very little airpower remained to the CNV, and the Courier had been loathe to send one of her two vertibirds to the east to take the message faster. Instead, she had sent her semi-exiled Brotherhood Scribe, friend, (and occasional lover), Veronica, east with a platoon of Securitrons to show that she was serious about the new technology.

Aside from the home region of the Mojave that she had wandered during her travels that led to her establishment of the CNV, the towns of Echo Bay (on the north end of Lake Mead, about twenty kilometers east of Bitter Springs) and Bullhead City (about fifty kilometers southeast of Searchlight and on the east bank of the Colorado river near Davis Dam, which had not been totally destroyed during the Great War and provided another power source for the CNV) both requested to join the confederacy shortly after the second battle of Hoover Dam. The tribals of Zion, under the leadership of Joshua Graham, the former Malpais Legate of the Legion drew up an alliance with the confederacy almost as soon as they heard of the unexpected results of the NCR and Legion war. They remained a simple ally, mostly focused on agriculture and tribalism within the valley of Zion.

Beyond these places was the one secret place that had become part of the CNV. Big Mountain had become probably the single most important place in the entire confederacy. The only people in the entire confederacy who were aware of its existence were her companions or former companions. Although all of the members of the Think Tank were at least slightly insane, they were still geniuses, and they had been working on new technologies for centuries after the bombs stopped virtually all other technical advancement. The Think Tank provided numerous technologies to the Courier, including (after much persuasion, Doctor 0 (O or Zero) was particularly angry about this) a new Mark III OS for the Securitrons, which heavily upgraded the auto-repair capabilities of the Securitrons, as well as the accuracy, range and damage of all of its weapon systems. Another entire new version of Securitrons were even outfitted with a new twin Tesla Cannon main gun in exchange for their missile systems. The Courier had several ideas for the technologies of the Big Empty, including something that just might completely secure the Mojave once and for all.

Nicole grunted as she shoved one of the bodies over onto the pavement to get to another corpse below it and swiftly began to rummage through its pockets. She found little, just a single grenade and a few shotgun bullets, but tossed them into her bag anyway. Suddenly she heard a series of beeps and chirps coming from down the road she had come from. She glanced up unhurriedly and saw an almost disgruntled sounding eyebot come floating quickly up the road.

"Oh ED-E, you thought I forgot you didn't you?" she cooed to the robot. The machine let out another set of unintelligible beeps and slowly rotated next to its master, using its heavily upgraded scanners to determine if any threats were within a First Recon's sniper range. Determining that there wasn't even a molerat around, the robot let loose one last beep and settled into a guard position.

Several of her companions had frequently marked that her obsession with the eyebot was... unhealthy.

To say the least.

She didn't care. She knew that the robot had saved her life, as well as their lives, an almost uncountable number of times, and it had been with her ever since she had made it to Primm early on in her journey. She loved the robot. The one time she had said that when defending her relationship with it, Cass, who had been on another whiskey romp, had asked if she used the laser cannon mounted below the grill that passed for a face as a... special friend. That particular comment had earned a drunk Cass a flying boot to the head, much to the amusement of all present, including Cass after she had picked herself drunkenly off of the floor.

However, the Robot had handled itself extraordinarily well, and had been a major factor in conquering the Mojave. Its lasers had torn through many bodies; human, animal, and mutant alike.

"Come on ED-E, we still have a long walk to Novac ahead of us," she said to the eyebot which obediently beeped and moved to follow a few feet behind her again. She started walking along the road at a brisk pace on the road north to Novac, leaving the corpses of Nabrun and his gang for the vultures and other mutated monsters of the wastes.

_Author's note; Once again, please feel free to tell me if their are any issues with the story so far. Just copy and paste the offending sentence or part of it into a review and tell me what is wrong with it and I will fix it as soon as I can._


	3. For the Republic: Part III

_Author's note; Before anyone says anything, I do in fact know that the dialogue between the Courier and Oliver is different than what is written in my story. There are several reasons for that, 1. I didn't like most of it, 2. I was making due with memory anyway, and decided to alter his character a little bit, 3. His aggressive attitude in the dialogue didn't match a conservative fighter, and I felt that he needed to be more of a political animal than a military one. _

_I really hope that no one thinks of my Courier as a whore or something, or me as a pervert after this chapter. I have seen a lot worse, but I don't really know how prudish my audience is so... Mentions of sex will definitely be a part of the story, but I am uncertain if I will have any Lemons or Smut in the story yet._

_A stupid idiosyncrasy about me, I don't use generic swear words in my language. I never have, and they probably won't appear to often in the story. I know, it is kind of weird, but I never said I was a normal person did I? Of course not!_

_Again, keep an eye out for any errors please, I want my writing to become better._

**For the Republic Part III**

She arrived at the outskirts of Novac without any further trouble from monsters or raiders, and glanced at the Dinky Dinosaur with a sad smile. That plastic dinosaur brought back memories of one of her companions that had left her after the defeat of the Legion. Craig Boone had gone back to join the NCR military after the disaster at the Dam, and he had rejoined the First Recon. She had offered him a job training the local militias that she had established in each town, but he had said that he wanted to help the NCR again. He had avenged Carla the best way he could. By shooting an almost appalling number of Legionaries. It had been particularly difficult to see him go especially after their little... rendezvous after the legion raid on Bitter Springs, but she had accepted that he never really loved her. He liked her and respected her, but he had only ever loved Carla.

Really, it was amazing how many people she had slept with since being shot in the head by Benny, and she knew it had been... awkward for her group, especially since she had had sex with half of the humanoid companions in the Presidential Suite of the Lucky 38. She had never really cared about gender, always focusing on the person she was with rather than what extensions or depressions of the epidermis were pressed against her. Although that incident with Cass had sprung entirely from a drunken incident at Gomorrah, involving several dead prostitutes, a bunch of drug addicts, and the bosses of the Omerta's, Big Sal and Nero, her relationships with Veronica and Boone had been more real. Boone had really needed comforting after the Battle of Bitter Springs, and Veronica had been on her before she was half a mile away from the 188 Trading Post, she had come close to falling completely in love with her. Their relationship was still not really a relationship, most of the time it was just mindless sex, and it wasn't particularly exclusive. They basically liked each other, and were attracted to each other, but mostly it was just about sex. While it still had been a onetime thing between her and Boone, (who had refused to let her call him Craig), it had almost ended up as something more. Thinking of Boone also made her think of the, "Treaty" she had established between herself and the NCR.

She was sitting upon a log by the fire in Lanius's camp, with the Enclave remnants, except for Daisy who was hunting the retreating legionaries in her vertibird, and her beloved eyebot, as well as Arcade, Veronica, Raul, and Boone. She had just killed Lanius, or as he had insisted during their battle, Caesar II, in single combat with blades. It was probably the most poignant thing she could have done to point out to the Legion that women were actually completely as capable as men were, as she slew the Legate with only one serious wound, a moderately deep cut that ran across her stomach and carved up from the right side of her waist up to just below her left breast. Arcade had administered to it after the fight, and now she had a bandage that wrapped around her torso like a bandoleer. The death of the last great Legion soldier in the west had also cause the rout of Legion troops, and the Legion could not last much longer before it shattered among former cultural traditions and power struggles.

His still burning crotch would probably even keep the few surviving Decani's and Centurion's from collecting his remains as well.

In one instant, the gates to Lanius's camp had been blasted open by an inordinate amount of explosives, and a large group of veteran rangers and troopers moved through quickly, looking to clear the area of Legionaries. They quickly realized that the only Legionnaires in the vicinity were all dead, including the new Caesar, who had been hung from a hastily established cross on the hill overlooking the camp. That was a particularly eye-catching sight due to the conflagration that continued to burn around his waist. There were in fact, only nine living people and one battered looking eyebot left in the entire camp.

A man moved up from the rear ranks dressed in a general's uniform. Nicole rose upon seeing the man that could only be General Lee Oliver for the first time and walked over to stand a few feet before him.

He wore a pale brown general's uniform that looked about as old as the dam behind him, and had a small amount of baby fat still on his face, and a slight belly, indicating that he was more of a political appointee than a real, tough as nails war leader that the republic needed to defeat such a savage opponent as the Legion. He had an almost astonished, and still somewhat fearful, smile on his face as he faced her.

"Well now, you must be that famous Courier I've been hearing so much about. I must tell you, you have been a tremendous help to your country, my lady. You do realize you and your robots and armored friends there have stopped the Legion almost single handedly here, right? I'm probably not going to get any of the credit!" He chuckled that last part in a silky voice that reminded her of politicians. She _hated_ politicians, with all of their fancy speeches and promises that were never kept. She knew that from when she lived in the Republic. However, there had been nothing personal in her then dislike, until her twelfth birthday, when a group of politically backed ruffians had murdered her entire family for refusing to sell the government the rights to their small solar farm. She had survived only because the leader of the marauders had decided she would make a good "pet", which also explained her hatred of slavery and rape.

The bandits had stayed the night in her parents house, and the leader had dragged her to her parents bed. After it was over, she had stolen his knife and cut his throat. He was the first mad she had ever killed, but he hadn't been the last even that night. She had silently slit the throats of every single member of his gang while they slept, stolen all of their equipment and weapons, buried her mother, father, grandmother, aunt, and brother and left the NCR behind. That was when she realized she was one of those people, the kind that was a natural killer in virtually every circumstance. Some people were violent, some were proficient in violence, and some could be taught to be violent. Others simply lose all sense of right and wrong and could cause pain among all of those around them with little to no effort. She was none of those, she was simply one of those people that was a natural killer. Killing nine grown men when she was only twelve within an hour of being raped proved that. She wasn't a psychopath, she could feel the deaths of all of those whom she had killed. She was just _good_ at killing things.

Ever since the raid on her home, she had wandered the wastes, doing odd jobs to keep herself fed, killing raider groups for their food when no jobs were to be found. Killing had become a fact of her life, the one thing she had left that she was good at.

She had never had a real problem in the wastes until the night that Benny and his thugs had caught her and buried her alive after "killing" her.

She had awoken to find old Doc Mitchell, and he explained what had happened and how she had survived. She had felt little at first, a dull feeling of amazement that she was alive, but nothing else. Later though, her hate had been awoken when she stumbled across some self styled "powder gangers" torturing and raping a few travelers nearby an ancient skydiving business. After killing the gang members and freeing their prisoners, or what was left of them anyway, she had then proceeded to defend the town of Goodsprings, in which she had awoken, from the Powder Gangers, and then wipe out everyone in their main base of operations.

After the destruction of the Powder Gangers, she had felt the hatred of the man that had tried to kill her rise up within her, and she had gone to hunt him down. She maintained her cool, sometimes simply cold, sense of reason and focused on patience, helping others on her hunt. She knew he wouldn't expect her, and there was no reason to hurry. And so she had begun her now legendary pursuit of Benny, eventually finding him in his Casino, the Tops. She didn't want to cause collateral damage, and had used her body to shameless effect, luring him into his suite and into a false sense of security by the simple expedient of removing her clothes. Being a typical male, he had nearly caused a Sonic boom rushing over to her and had had his fun, eventually falling asleep after he was done. Her plan to kill him was then in perfect order except for one thing. She had fallen asleep wrapped in his arms, and awoken in the morning to find that he was gone.

After many other adventures, during which, she met Mr. House and discovered his plan for taking over the Mojave, she had eventually found Benny again, on _his _knees this time, in Caesar's tent. By that time however, most of the hatred in her had evaporated, and she had been content to give him a stealth boy and a few bobby pins to escape from his prison. She had no idea where he was now, all she knew was that Oliver was expecting a response.

"Oh, I'm sure you will get some of the credit whoever you are," she said cheerfully.

"My mistake good lady! In all of the exitement I forgot to introduce myself, I am General Lee Oliver of the New California Republic Army, and it is an absolute, unequivocal pleasure to meet you miss **Glendale**," he said with a typical politicians aplomb. She _hated _politicians.

"Just Nicole if you please, Glendale, is... a place I am trying to forget," his face changed to a look of concern, but his eyes gave him away. He knew all about the murder of her family. A smidgeon of proof and she would-

"Ah, yes, of course. I heard about that, ten years ago was it? Yes, yes, horrible really, raiders striking at the heartland of the Republic? Terrible. It was things like that that convinced me to join the army, and, well here we are now. Me, in control of a whole new district of the Republic, and you ending the lives of even more of those glorified raiders that we all have been fighting here today. At least the Legion has at last been defeated, and out Republic may once more be secure," he said the first part with a degree of sadness that quickly changed to a tone of arrogance in his own abilities, with a brief mention of her at the end. Typical political jargon for, "Look at how good the people under MY command are doing! Do you see that? MY people are the best, so clearly **I** am the best! VOTE FOR ME!". She _really_ hated politicians. It was really rather sad that the next few words that would spill out of her mouth would make her one of them.

"I have one problem with that General. Whoever said that you would be the one in charge?" she said that in an airy way, but her eyes were as hard as the Steel she had joined. His face instantly snapped from the jovial grin of the favorite uncle, to what could only be described as a petulant, _angry_ man, used to getting what he wanted and not believing that someone could say that that he couldn't have it.

"The top Brass and the president himself! Who do you think you are to question their right?" he growled at her, his voice changing as well, with arrogance and anger almost dripping from it.

"Well, I'm the one in charge of all of those robots behind you,"

Oliver signaled to one of his ranger guards to check, not wanting to take his burning eyes away from the little scrap of a girl before him that could _dare _to raise an eyebrow at _him_. He had come here to offer her a commission as a Colonel in the army, but she would be lucky if he let her shine his boots after her confrontational attitude. And just what robots was she talking about?

The Ranger he had signaled gulped and tapped him on the shoulder. Having received some sort of confirmation that their was at least _something_ to see behind him and not just a brief stretch of dirt leading up to a cliff wall, he turned around. And saw over a hundred Securitrons with cartoon army man faces and opened missile racks looking back at him and his squad of fifteen rangers and troopers. She hadn't been bluffing. This crazy girl actually had the power to send him and his troops off on their way and there was little he could do about it. But he would be dead before he rolled over and died for some girl who thought she could meddle with NCR affairs of state.

"I see those robots girl, and I am not to pleased to see 'em! Just who do you think you are, sliding your dirty little fingers all over our victory?" he was really mad now, but knew he was in a bad position. While he had something around six thousand soldiers in the Mojave area, only a third of them were actually at the Dam at the moment, and most of them were still fighting Legion forces. He also knew that a hundred Securitrons could easily match all of the NCR troops at the dam, especially with their new upgrades, and there were probably hundreds more than the Courier had revealed to him because the six months since she had been shot in the head had proven that she was one; resourceful, paranoid, and _extremely_ hard to kill, girl, and she would no doubt want a reserve to later surprise any counter attack. She wasn't the type to bluff, and he didn't think that she would.

"I, am the new leader of New Vegas, and I suggest you get someone up here with a little negotiating skill before you do something you will regret. I also propose that you order all of your troops to stand down immediately. The rest of my army will mop up the remainder of the Legion," her eyes hardened, "Any resistance or lack of obedience to my requests will be met with deadly force,"

"I am not about to sit here and-" suddenly a beep from his mobile radio operator's radio stopped him in mid sentence. The man, who looked a little worried about all of the fire power pointing directly at him and the rest of the small force of NCR troopers, quickly answered the radio signal. After a moment where the rest of them heard nothing but a few affirmatives and negatives, and eventually a, "Yes sir, I will tell him that," he looked back up at the general

"Excuse me sir, but we are receiving a communication from Ambassador Crocker. He has just arrived at the dam and wants to speak to the Courier there. He also said that you are to stand down all troops not currently fighting Legion forces, and await his arrival here at the Legate's camp," the trooper looked and sounded a little nervous telling his obviously enraged general that he was ordered to effectively surrender to a girl that had just delivered him and the entire NCR an ultimatum.

"Very well. For the moment, we shall stand down," growled the general. If his glare had heat, she would have spontaneously burst into flame from the intensity of his fury ridden eyes. Instead, she simply stood their placidly, resting her weight on her left foot with a hand still on the holstered submachine gun on her hip. Behind her, her companions and power armored allies stood ready with weapons lowered, but ready to snap up in an instant. The NCR rangers and troopers around the general all had their weapons lowered as well, waiting for a word from Oliver to start shooting.

They remained standing at these tense positions until a small group of people surrounded by a squad of a five Securitrons, quickly approached the remnants of the wall surrounding the camp. At their head was the Strip Ambassador, Dennis Crocker, and the commandant of the Hoover Dam Garrison, Colonel Cassandra Moore, along with several other troopers. The Ambassador approached the standoff, and began speaking directly to the Courier.

"I take it that you want something, and I am not in the mood to beat around the bush to find out what it is, so if you will simply put your demands forward, I will see what we can do to get this little misunderstanding resolved. So, please, explain why you have betrayed the Republic," he said with more than a little acid in his tone and a pointed glare toward her. She had felt a little bad about not helping the NCR to take over the Mojave, but had decided that a new world based entirely off of the remnants of the old world that caused the end of the world wouldn't be the best of ideas. House had been a better leader than she was, and would probably have ended up doing better than she would as well, but she had refused to destroy the Brotherhood of Steel and had anticipated more acts of genocide against people who may or may not have deserved it. The Legion didn't even deserve to be _completely_ wiped, as most of the people in the Legion had been brainwashed by Caesar's skills and Charisma, and they had revered him as their god. That didn't make them all bad, just easily led and stupid.

"To be fair sir, I moved out of the Republic years ago, so I don't see any of my actions here in the Mojave as a betrayal of anyone in the NCR. But to answer your question, what I want is simple, blunt, and probably not something you will want to hear. What I want, is the NCR out of the Mojave,"

Silence echoed her words, as the shocked faces of the ambassador and the military personnel stared at her in absolute amazement, which quickly changed to questioning looks, and boiling rage. She maintained a calm appearance, facing directly toward Crocker, and her eyes never left his. She knew what he had expected, demands to keep New Vegas itself free, or to give her direct control of the of the Strip, although still remaining annexed by the NCR. The second option might even have been acceptable, as she had proven to be excellent ally, proficient negotiator, and excellent fighter.

But the independence of the _entire_ Mojave region?

Unacceptable. She couldn't have that.

Except she had a massive army with thousands of Securitrons, Brotherhood soldiers, Boomers, ex-Enclave soldiers, and various mercenaries and other groups. She even a small degree of air support. She could demand anything she wanted.

"Well then, I believe we have an accord," Nicole said with a smile as she looked across the small table in Colonel Moore's office and extended her hand toward the ambassador. They had spent the last four hours beating out the details for a treaty between the NCR and the newly dubbed, Confederacy of New Vegas, and she was happy that they had been able to resolve the situation fairly peacefully. Considering the ultimatum they faced however, she knew that Crocker, Moore, and Oliver had had no choice but to accede to most of her demands.

With the exception of, well, the entire thing, her demands had been fairly reasonable. The entire explored region of the Mojave; from the Boomer territory in the north-east, to Jacobstown in the north-west, to Primm in the south-west, to Cottonwood Cove and Searchlight in the south east. The new nation would be recognized as a sovereign nation by the NCR, and the embassy on the strip would remain in NCR hands. The dam would change hands and come under the jurisdiction of the confederacy, although thirty five percent of its power would still be diverted to the Republic to satisfy their growing energy needs. After Yes Man had reactivated the dams power systems and the pumps, the dam was now functioning at just shy of one hundred percent power efficiency, so the reduced amount of the percentage of power provided to the NCR, actually didn't matter, as they were actually receiving more power than they had before the second battle of Hoover dam had erupted. All other power generated from the dam, as well as the Lucky 38's nuclear reactor and the various solar panels around the Mojave, would provide an extraordinary amount of power for the citizens of the confederacy, making the send off of power to the NCR a minor consideration in order to keep peace between the two nations.

In addition, all troops except for a few companies of troopers stationed at the embassy, were required to move out of the Confederacy and return to the Mojave Outpost, which now marked the border between the Confederacy and the Republic. Nicole planned on setting up a system to allow military access to the NCR, but only after a cool-down period following the sudden rising up of the confederacy. The leaders of the NCR needed to cool down and think about the new changes before she would let what could effectively be enemy soldiers into her lands. There was no way that Kimball would win the next election following this humiliating defeat and loss of new territory and revenue. The entire republic may even descend into an economic recession following the massive loss of people, time, and money.

In light of that, she could not allow the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against her forces. Fortunately for her, the vast majority of her soldiers needed no rest, and could patrol the borders constantly, keeping an eye out for potential NCR treachery under the (very real) guise of removing; raiders, creatures, monsters, and Legion remnants from her new lands.

The ambassador ruefully looked at her hand and sighed, before shaking his head and extending his own, grasping hers in a brief handshake. He then looked down at the document before him, a document that essentially declared the unconditional surrender of all NCR troops in the Mojave, and ruined everything that thousands before them had died for. He bit his lip and took up his pen, signing the bottom of the page that she had written out on one of the many old computers that littered the dam. He then passed his pen to Oliver, whom had remained silent throughout the entire discussion. Oliver took one look at the treaty before the rage returned to his eyes.

"No," he said, again glaring at the Courier before him. She raised an eyebrow at him, and both Moore and Crocker looked at him quizzically, and with a bit of fear. If he did not sign that paper as the commander of all NCR forces in the Mojave, it was just a worthless scrap of paper.

"Now Lee, you know we need to-"

"What I know, Ambassador, is that this little girl has just outmaneuvered us, House and the entire Legion. I accept that, I may even have wanted to give back to her a little bit for all of the help she has given us, but this! This is ridiculous! We can't give her all of this it is completely-"

"General! If you do not sign that document _immediately_ I will-"

"You will what _Ambassador_?" Oliver growled back at Crocker.

"Very well, General, you leave me no choice. I hereby remove you from all of your duties and assignments. You are now relieved of command. Colonel Moore, you are now the senior officer in the Mojave. Please sign the document," Moore looked from her fuming General to her Ambassador, moved up to the document and quickly signed it. She then turned away and refused to look at Oliver.

"Well, I'm glad that is over with!" said the Courier with a beatific smile, although her emerald eyes still held a few embers of anger when she looked towards the General. According to House's calculations that Yes Man had come across, Oliver had stood a more than thirty percent chance of committing suicide after the battle. Seeing the despair and anger in his face though, she decided to raise that estimate. She looked back at Crocker and Moore, and nodded her head before exiting the room with her hands clasped behind her back and an entourage of Securitrons following her footsteps.

She glanced around the town for signs of battle or death, more out of habit than anything else, as her Securitrons would have informed her if anything untoward had happened to any of the towns in her confederacy. Seeing nothing except for a few of the dozen or so heavily armed robots patrolling the outer edge of the town, as they did constantly, and a handful of people and brahmin walking about, she strode up to the gate in the fence and debris piles that protected the inner section of the town that included the Motel, a few bungalows, and the iconic Dinky the Dinosaur.

She passed through the gate and immediately turned to the left to climb the stairs that led to the second level of the Motel, with ED-E bobbing along behind her. She opened the first door she came to and walked into the room that she had had ever since Cliff Briscoe had taken over the Motel after she lured Jeannie May to her death. Jeannie had been strange when she first met her, but she later found a Legion bill of sale in her safe. Weird was alright with Nicole, slavery, especially Legion slavery, was most certainly not. She had brought the woman to the front of the dinosaur, and Boone, who had been living in the town at the time, had taken the shot, killing her instantly. In fact, her head had exploded in a delightful fountain of gore and blood. Having gained his revenge for the death of his wife, Boone had followed her out of Novac, and had helped her during the remainder of her travels until the day he finally revealed to her what had really happened to his wife, and what had really happened at Bitter Springs.

They had gone to Bitter Springs and had spent the night, eventually driving off a massive Legion raiding party, and saving the refugee camp. She had gained insight into his mind afterward, discovering that he had always expected to die for killing civilians during the First Battle of Bitter Springs. When he had not, he had seemed...empty inside. Like it was a _bad_ thing that he had survived. She had done her best to convince him that he hadn't really done anything wrong, that he had been ordered to open fire and had done the best he could to convince his superiors not to open fire. He hadn't really been convinced, but he had seemed better after that. Eventually, one thing had led to another and they had woken up in each others arms, naked and awkward.

She snorted at that memory. It hadn't been the only time that something like that had happened between her and her companions, but it had been particularly awkward to wake up, still laying on his chest.

In any event, it really didn't matter. Boone had left with the NCR forces after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and reenlisted in the 1st Recon. The last she heard, he had been given a commision as a Lieutenant, and was patrolling somewhere near Baja.

Glancing around her room, she saw that absolutely nothing had changed since she had last left it, and, paranoia overcome by exhaustion from the long hike, collapsed on the bed, letting ED-E settle into an alert guard position over her limp form.

_(Author's Note: Thank you to anyone who is reading this, sorry about a lack of action and adventure and romance et cetera. I need to establish what happened after the defeat of the Legion before I can get into new stuff. I think the next chapter will be more to the present, about what is currently going on and what will happen in the (hopefully) first part of the story._

_Pleas point out any errors or mistakes in this chapter and other chapters before this, I check the reviews fairly frequently, so I should be able to fix the problems at some point. I wanted to finish this chapter before I went back and fixed the errors in the first two, and I will probably get around to that sometime tonight, or at the latest tomorrow._

_I had a lot of trouble writing the flashback here (I had the entire first part written before I even posted the first chapter) so any pointers or advice or whatever would be appreciated. I like criticism, because I am naturaly paranoid enough to think that everyone is just trying to be nice to me when they say that is good when it is really bad._

_If you just hate the story, well, I'm sorry for that too)._


	4. A Small Problem

_(Author's note: First to my (so far) two reviewers, thank you for your pointing out of errors, I believe that I fixed them. The Yao Guai can't just be in Zion and the Capital Wasteland, and I am simply including them as wasteland-creatures-that-want-to-kill-you-for-no-particular-reason. They probably wander around a lot._

_I wanted to have Moore be mostly just a fill in character for the moment, and too shocked by the turn of events to really play any part in the endgame of the battle of Hoover Dam. Besides, I always felt that she would obey her direct orders from her superior, particularly when that superior was in the room with her._

_Secondly, I apologize for the lack of an update, but I have recently become addicted to Dragon Age, and have been playing that nonstop for the past three weeks. I'm starting to get back into a Fallout mood, so now I will start writing the story again. Hurray and other expressions of joy!_

_Thirdly, I used the Google translator for all words written in another language, and have absolutely no sense of grammar in any language other than Spanish and English, and very little in Spanish, so please don't rip my head off for that. If you know the correct translations, please, feel free to tell me so and I will fix them as soon as I can_

_Fourthly, I am terrible at naming things, so I apolagise for the terrible title (and lack of spell check, for some reason it has stopped working on everthing except for my Anthropology Notes Paper (and it doesn't recognise things like Australopithecines))._

A Small Problem

"No"

"Look I understand _some_ restrictions but-"

"No"

"I can be as reasonable as the next guy. Why can't you? Its just a limited supply of-"

"No"

"What do you expect me to do without them! I can't just go all fu-"

"No Cachino! She left instructions that there would be no, and by no I mean N-O drugs on the strip. Period. Finis de Aliquam*," Arcade said, glaring at the head of the Omerta's. Technically, that statement wasn't even true. Nicole had left him instructions to _act_ like it was true to get the imbecile to accept severe restictions on the drug trade, both within the Strip, and throughout the entire Confederacy. He didn't like it but accepted that the Omerta's were unfortunately too important to be been simply kicked off the strip or, perhaps, gunned down in an "accident", but he also knew that that was really just, well not _ir_rational anger, but anger nevertheless speaking. Besides, that's where tyrannical dictatorial reigns came from, not just the quasi dictatorial laissez faire thing that he and Nicole had established following the foundation of the confederacy.

Suppression of the bad guys on semi-trumped up charges would almost inevitably lead to oppression of normal people on seriously trumped up charges after all.

That didn't make him _not_ want to shoot the idiot in front of him, it just gave him a reason to cling to so that he did not actually _do_ it. Or even "convince" one of the many Securitrons to "accidentally" fire a full barrage of missiles at the Casino leader's head. Or perhaps simply "forget" that Cachino was there when he fired a practice shot where his head happened to be. Or, he could-

Nope, nope, get off of that tangent Arcade, it leads to a short term end of exasperation and the knowledge that one more bad guy is dead, but also starts up that whole tyrannical government thing again, he sighed to himself, turning his attention back to the whining Omerta before him.

"-and after your stupid words that no one but that megalomaniac Caesar could possibly understand, you will give me some sort of stupid f-"

"Cachino! Shut up!" Arcade snapped at him. The Omerta glowered at him as he pressed a finger to each side of his brow and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ward off the headache the other man was giving him. He failed, and sighed, before turning the ire of his gaze back at Cachino.

"You really should just be glad that we are letting you keep your whores," he said.

"Yeah, the whores that are addicted to our fu-"

"For the last time Cachino! This is a political meeting! I don't care what you say when you are not in here, but please! Just keep your words and tone civil, and I will happily get you back to your casino," Cachino scowled at him, but surrendered the point, knowing that he wouldn't get anywhere until he did. Arcade was a stickler for that sort of thing when it came to these meetings, even when they were, as they were now, alone in the room save for four securitrons that stood guard at the two doors. They were in one of the suites in the Lucky 38 that Nicole had reserved for administrative matters. Essentially, Arcade's new home, as he almost never left. The near constant stream of ambassador's, mogul's, officeer's, merchant's, and common citizen's left him almost unable to rest. And he _hated_ it. Not helping people of course, he enjoyed helping people, and not the independance of the nation, he knew that was extremely important. He just hated that he had to be Nicole's deputy, chief minister, _and _secretary. He liked helping people, and he was glad that Nicole was seriously listeningto his advice and opinions on all matters.

She merrily ignored him whenever he started talking about personal safety and centralized authority at the capital, and she was certainly the authority on military matters, but he was well read on; political matters, economic problems, social behaviors, reforms, laws, legislation, et cetera.

And he also had to deal with slimeballs like the man in front of him whenever Nicole was off adventuring.

"I know that you have many employees with... needs, as well as customers that wish to purchase various products that you...serve. But the stance she gave me is quite clear on this issue. No drugs on the strip save stimpacks and a limited amount of med-x for medicinal purposes. And I mean _medicinal_,"

"Look, I came into this expecting some limitations, some restrictions, and I had accepted that, but there is no f-...er, no way I am going to accept complete restriction on Gomorrah. Jet, Physco, Med-x, all of those things, are a huge chunk of our income," Cachino looked a little pained saying all of those words without, quite, using any profanity whatsoever.

"Hypothetically speaking, what would you do if we do decide to restrict all drug traffic on the strip?" Arcade asked.

"Well, I can always fall back on old Big Sal and Nero's plan, and sneak a lot of guns into the strip to cause havoc. But that would result in the lot of us getting sent flying out of here with our tails shot off. I know that those fu...er, _powerful_ robots of yours would rip us to shreds even if I got a bunch of Fat Men and mininukes, which doesn't even consider the Queen herself coming into our establishment. I saw how fast she took down the old bosses; quick and nasty, and I really don't want to set any records for how quick she can take a whole Casino down. Besides the bad precedent, we would all be dead," Arcade looked unfazed by the admission, mostly because he was. Cachino would think that first.

"So, if not a poor coup attempt, then what is your grand plan?" he said exasperatedly.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe we just smuggle the goods in, maybe we set up shop down in Freeside, maybe we just knock a hole in the stupid wall and say that the Strip isn't a closed community anymore. Knock a loophole into the looped wall as it were,"

Arcade raised an eyebrow. The last one was almsot sophistaced. For an Omerta, it was actually probably a random moment of genius. Legally at least. It would work well in a semi-static law system like the NCR, where arguments slowed everything down. It wouldn't work however, when the Courier could legally make everyone her slave in the blink of an eye.

It was still a good idea though. Or at least a good idea for the Omerta's. Had one of them finally developed a brain that didn't revolve around whining, betrayal, and money? That wasn't a good sign. At least they had the enthusiastic support of the White Gloves and the Chairmen, not to mention the horde of several thousand securitrons, as well as several other weapons, some hidden throughout the Mojave as a reserve against situations just like that, others being developed at Big Mountain as they spoke.

"That sounds a little... extreme, Cachino,"

"Like I said, this is important for us. If you cut us off, we won't be able to compete with the others. Ultra Luxe has all that "class" nonsense, and admitably good food; Tops has the probably the friendliest tables, and that talking gimic thing they have draws people in like a moth to flame. All we have is our den of vice and sin, and if we lose our drugs we lose half of our market, and our whores all go into withdrawal. And don't even think about saying that is our fault. We do offer free drugs to employee's, but we don't _make_ them take any," Arcade pushed his glasse back up his nose. He really hoped that Cachino didn't notice how nervous he was. This idea was his plan,

"Hmm, perhaps. I will need to discuss this with Nicole when she returns. It isn't my decision of course. I _might_ be able to convince her to just restrict them, but I think either way, the taxes on them will be going up significantly. That's the best I can offer you, Cachino," Now was the moment where he would see if his deception, if he could even call it that, would pay off. He wasn't very good at all of this nonsensical political maneauvering. He understood politics, but the necessity of tip-toeing around truths, and manipulating people for the sake of ideals was alien to him.

"Yeah, alright. I guess I have to take what I can get. If I make her mad enough she'll just swamp me with those stupid robots of hers anyway won't she?"

Arcade almost sighed in relief, and quickly wrapped up the rest of his meeting with the Omerta boss, before having one of the guarding Securitron's escort the man off of the premises. He leaned back in the chair at the end of the table he sat aat and rubbed his temple with his fists and closed his eyes, sighing with relief. He loathed that man. The drug ring the Omerta's had established in the area had been a major factor in the size and strength of the fiends, and had nearly doubled the amount of patients the Follower's of the Apocalypse had to deal with at the Old Morman Fort in Freeside.

After a moment or two of contempaltive thinking to calm himself and prepare him for whatever was next on his agenda to do as the Chief Minister of the confederacy, he opened his eyes.

And lept backwards in his chair, causing it to jump nearly a foot into the air, fall back and unceremoniously dump the doctor flat on his back, under the gleeful gaze of the Queen of the Mojave herself.

She was perched upon the corner of the table he had been sitting at, less than a foot away from where he had been sitting comfortably in his chair.

"Hey Arcade! What are you doing down there?" she asked with very obviously feigned wonder. He grumbled a few choice words that he had just finished admonishing Cachino about, and stumbled to his feet under the glinting eyes of the woman who had almost singlehandedly (baring a few friends, armies, and masses of monowheeled robots) conquored the Mojave. His returning glare had no affect on her save to make her grin widen even further.

"I see that you have returned,"

"Wow, that might just set the record as the most obvious statement of the year!" she gasped and covered her mouth with her left hand in a (failing) attempt to conceal her ever widening smile.

"Yes, perhaps it is. Do you mind telling me about your trip, such as where you went without leaving me anything but a note that said, and I quote, 'I am off exploring'?" Her grin vanished rapidly after that, and she actually looked a little sheepish.

Or he supposed she looked sheepish. he had never actually _seen_ a sheep, so he had to take it for granted.

"Well, I uh, went on a little patrol to the south, you know, around Nipton? Killed a few deathclaw's and stuff up around Sloan, shot some idiot raiders near Wolfhorn Ranch, then came back up through Novac. That's the grand story,"

"Why do you leave me here alone to deal with these things?" The Courier gasped at that.

"Alone? What about the hundreds of Securitrons or Raul?"

"I mean with people that are actually a part of the government, people who can help me deal with problems that arise from managing several groups that are ideologically opposed! Besides, Raul just likes to toy around with that stupid reactor in the basement, he never comes up to talk,"

"When did you become a social little Cazedor?"

"That's not the point Nicole. You need to set up some sort of system. Being in charge does not begin and end in having your robots trundle up and down the highways. You need to deal with public perceptions, economic policies-" he was interrupted by her raised hand.

"First of all, everyone _loves_ me right now. I don't mess with their business, keep the monsters from ripping their faces off, and basically let them go about as they see fit. Secondly, that stuff is your job. Neither of us is a very good public perceptions person, so right now, I deal with big issues, and military and security, you worry about fixing the economy and the basic setting up of an actual industry beyond tourism. I deal with the foreign relationships with the NCR and Zion, and you take care of the day to day business. I'm pretty sure that we have covered this," she looked at him expectantly and hopped off of the desk, stridding to the door and waving over her shoulder for him to follow. He sighed and picked up the chair before catching up to her and then responding to her.

"Yes but I still think-"

"Arcade if you say what I think you are going to say... just don't,"

"But it would solve all of our problems if you would just-"

"No Arcade! I trust you! I am not going to bring someone else in that I don't personally know. And I don't happen to know very many supercharismatic, politicany types that we need right now," They had arrived at the elevator, and Nicole had stabbed the call elevator button. The door opened and she stomped through it crossing her arms underneath her chest and toying with a strand of her blonde hair as she did so. He knew it was her nervous response, the pose she took whenever she was lying or at least not entirely sure about something.

"Nicole, who are you thinking of?" he asked quietly not liking th place where his thoughts were taking him.

"Did you not here me? I said that I-"

"Please Nicole, I'm anti-social, not an idiot. Who are you thinking of?" She grimaced and consiously uncrossed her arms and stared at the wall. It was at that point that she realized she hadn't hit a button yet, and she quickly jabbed the one that would bring them to the Penthouse.

"I think we need to talk to Yes Man, don't you? Get an assesment of the situation and-" she stopped when he grabbed her arm.

"Stop avoiding the question, Nicole! Tell me, now," he growled at her. Most would consider doing what he was doing to the Courier as an act of assisted suicide, but he knew she just didn't want to say what was on her mind.

"Fine. Fine, Arcade! You win," she sighed and resolutely ripped her arm away from his grasp, and looked at the corner of the elevator farthest from her friend and uttured one word.

"Benny,"

_(Author's note: I have no idea how obvious that was coming or not, but it is the whole point of this first part, besides showing the situation with the confederacy, and trying to explain what exactly is going on in the Mojave. I have several more parts planed, but again, don't expect any sort of frequent or scheduled updates. I write when I feel like it and when I have time. I don't want to make this a chore (although I really am looking foward to the part after next, I won't say anything besides that)._

_Hopefully, the next chapter will be out soon. I think it will be better, because it will be in Nicole's perspective again, and I will be discussing less of the same thing over and over again as I have been. Or maybe not, I haven't written it yet, I don't know how it will turn out._

_Review please and point out good things, confusing things, flaws, out of character moments, ideas, whatever comes to mind. I LIKE CRITISISM!_

_Also, my spellcheck is refusing to cooperate and perform its function. Sorry, but I am working on an 8 year old version of Word here._

_(* Finis de Aliquam ~= End of story) I have very little knowledge of latin, so please, feel free to correct me, but blame Google translator)._


	5. I Still Don't get the Flying Circus

_Alright, blame college and Dragon Age (Origins and 2. Yes I realize they have been out for a while, but I just got them... a few days after I posted the last chapter and I have been playing them nonstop. Blasted Bioware) for the lateness of this chapter. You can still blame the terrible-ness on me._

**I still don't get the Flying Circus'**

Arcade didn't really process what she had said at first. She wanted to bring _Benny_ into the government of New Vegas? Benny, the ex-head of the chairmen? Benny the one who had created Yes Man and developed the original idea for a coup against House? Benny the one that had_ shot her in the head at pointblank range?_ That Benny!

"You can't mean the same Benny that I think you mean," he said to her eventually.

"Well, um... yeah I kind of do," she said as she almost cowered against the wall of the elevator. Arcade sighed in exasperation. The girl was a genius, but it was _unbelievable_ how stupid she was!

"Any particular reason you want the man who shot you in a position of power? Oh wait, I see the benefits now! No worries about retirement plans, the whole Legion and NCR thing takes an immediate about turn, and oh yes! We all get to start talking like a bunch of... a bunch of... well, _idiots_!" He glared at her again as she attempted to nonchalantly examine the polish on the metal framework of the elevator.

"This isn't all about that whole crazy sex revenge plan is it?" Arcade asked her after a few moments.

"Not that again Arcade! Look, that would have worked out, I just, sort of, uh, fell asleep after,"

"Uh huh,"

"I never _really_ wanted to kill him, I was just mad that he had shot me. Then, after we found him in the Fort, there was no way I could kill him while he was just kneeling there,"

"Are you sure it isn't because the last time he was 'kneeling there' he had your legs wrapped around his head?"

"You really aren't going to let that go are you? It was a plan, it turned out to be a bad plan, and it didn't work out. I still had a good night,"

The ding of the elevator temporarily stopped the conversation, and the doors slid open with a brief rush of air. They walked out into the Penthouse area and saw the setting sun just over the top of the mountains to the west; its light giving the entire floor a warm, orange cast. Turning left, they walked over to the giant monitor that had previously showed a static image of the former proprietor of the New Vegas Strip, but now showed a large image of a cartoon smiley face set on a green background. That face was the physical representation of Yes Man, the artificial intelligence that Benny had created to take over the Lucky 38's software. Now, he was the one who maintained the empire behind the scenes, as perhaps a dozen people still living even knew of his existence.

"Hey! Hi there! How did your trip go!" said the speaker under the monitor in an exuberant voice that just dripped helpfulness. And that is exactly what he was for, for yes man's primary directive was to answer anyone's question whenever they asked him anything. It was limited to things on the 38's network, mostly associated with; House's history, his plans for Vegas and the Mojave, Securitrons, and the remaining defensive systems available to them that House had established before the great war; and he couldn't be used answer things beyond the scope of his programming. Despite that however, he was essential for the daily upkeep of the entire Confederacy, as he sent out constant preprogrammed instructions to all of the Securitrons under their control.

He was also probably the biggest reason for Nicole's coup being successful, as Benny, in his almost infinite arrogance, had not thought to place in restrictions on who Yes Man would and would not talk to. Learning about the rogue Securitron had begun as a backup plan for her in case House ever threatened to kill her, but she had activated her Wild Card plan (as Benny and Yes Man referred to it anyway) when House had started wanting her to pick off some of the groups in the wasteland. Asking for help from the Boomers had been fine, preventing the Omerta's from attacking the Strip had been alright. Destroying the Brotherhood of Steel Bunker (and subsequently throwing a punch in the face of one of the most powerful forces in the wasteland, while power armored) was simply stupid of House.

While he had a point that the Brotherhood would never allow the control of the Mojave to fall into the hands of someone that a great amount of powerful prewar technology at there disposal, directly attacking them would also result in another war equivalent to the last war with the Enclave.

Asking someone who was an official honorary member of the Brotherhood was also more than somewhat idiotic.

She didn't like all of the members of the Brotherhood, and was determined to change their isolationist conservative viewpoint, but she certainly didn't want them _dead_. They weren't bad people like the Legion or Omerta's.

Besides, having a bunch of power armored, laser rifle wielding, highly trained military specialists did _not_ sound like the conclusion to one of her better days.

"The trip went well. I found a small group of raiders about halfway between Nipton and Wolfhorn ranch. Nothing significant," she said in answer of his question. She thought of Yes Man as a he, mostly due to his voice and appearance, but also because of his name.

"Oh good! Not that I would expect anything else! Your pretty awesome you know!" came the enthusiastic reply. Not that his flattery meant much. It was simply part of his basic subroutines.

"Right. Anything important happen while I was gone?" she would have just asked Arcade, but he was still fuming behind her. Benny wasn't _that_ bad of an option was he? Just let him work on public speeches and propaganda, and he couldn't be that hard to squish if he ever got revolutionary thoughts in his head. Of course, having him join the confederacy required _finding_ him first, something she wanted to talk to Yes Man about. But she also needed to find out if anything major had happened that Arcade hadn't told her about already.

"Well, our Securitrons sent to hunt down the legion have reported 179 kills against the Legion soldiers since the last time you asked, for the loss of one Securitron that can be repaired. That delightful man from Novac, No-Bark, has sighted at least a dozen communists dancing the Remigold on top of the large dinosaur. All of them were supposedly covered in black and white checkers, apparently to keep aliens from seeing them! Wow! Did you know that! Maybe we should paint all of the Securitrons like that, just in case of alien invasion!"

"That's alright Yes Man. Anything else important happen?"

"Nope, nothing much has happened recently that is all that important, Bullhead City is sending up those engineers to help me keep Hoover Dam running, but otherwise, nothing notable is occurring or has occurred recently,"

"Alright the, now I was hoping I could ask-"

"But you didn't ask what was important that was coming up soon! You really should, its _really_ important," Yes man whispered the last part, but since the "whisper" was coming from the large speaker right in front of her it wasn't very secretive. Nor should it be, because the only things on the entire floor that might hear were the handful of Securitrons that guarded the floor, Arcade, and herself.

"Fine then Yes Man, what is important that is about to happen?" she sighed exasperatedly.

"Oh! You know the NCR, the big country to the west?" he asked like the NCR was some sort of legend that she probably hadn't ever heard of.

"For God's sake Yes Man! What is going on!"

"Well, Kimball's term is now finally up and their elections are about to start! SO we can expect a big change in their policy toward us, because there is no _way_ Kimball is getting re-elected. I don't even think he is running! That's a silly term for wanting to be voted for isn't it? Running? Why would he run? He would get all sweaty and-"

"Yes Man!"

"Right sorry. I can download into one of the Securitrons here if you want to take your frustrations out on me, then you don't have to shoot the monitor!"

"That's... tempting, but no. Just... tell me, do you know who is running? I need to know what to expect,"

"Well, there is a lot of talk about some guy who is gaining a lot of popularity. His name is Quincy Sanderson. He was some sort of scientist from Dayglow before he became a representative for that city about nine years, four months and twenty-nine days ago," Arcade stepped up from behind her and strode up to the front of the monitor.

"Who else is running Yes Man? We need to know everything about these people and their views on the Mojave,"

"Oh! Hi there Chief Minister Gannon! How are-"

"Answer the question Yes Man! For being so helpful, you always seem to dance around the point," muttered the ex-doctor. Nicole tittered next to him. Apparently, the possibility of eminent doom and destruction even got him to stop brooding about her new choice for Minister of Information.

"Right, sorry Chief Minister! I can download to a Securitron if you want to-" Arcade sighed before waving his arm halfheartedly before himself, and Yes Man continued, "alright then. Well, Sanderson seems to like focusing on advancing science and research, probably because he is a scientist himself, and because of radiation around his home. That is just an extrapolation though, he is normally fairly quiet otherwise when it comes to politics, but he seems to be gaining respect from his peers and is the current favorite for the Presidency."

"Next is there current Secretary of Defense, Vivian Albatross-"

"Albatross!"

"Arcade, your weird references to 300 year old comedy do not impress. Don't use them on your dates," Nicole said with a half grin, half grimace on her face.

"You think I get _dates_ in this position? The last time I got laid was before I met you! _Ages_ before I met you. Besides, even _you_ got the reference," Arcade grumble folding his arms across his chest as he turned to face her.

"Only because you found those ridiculously old recordings of some Flying Circus and forced me to watch them when I had that stupid flu. There wasn't anything about flying circus', and I still don't get it,"

"Its a-"

"Didn't you want to know about these candidates for the NCR's presidency? Because I will leave you to your conversation if not, but you seemed pretty insistent a moment ago," Yes Man's voice, although it couldn't exactly be called _reproving_, due to the fact that he _always_ sounded happy, was as close as it ever came. After receiving a mumbled apology from each of them, he continued on his debriefing of the remaining candidates, all of which were either still upset about Nicole taking over the Mojave, or too much the armchair general to ever figure out why they had been driven out in the first place.

"So it sounds like we are rooting for this Sanderson guy, for the simple reason that he is the only candidate that doesn't necessarily hate us and want to parade our collective heads and microchips around on pikes, right?" Arcade said glumly after Yes Man had finished.

"Alright, Yes Man, see what you can find out about this guy, discretely if you can. Arcade, I don't think we should take an official stance on this. If someone else ends up winning, we don't need to deliberately antagonize them," the Queen of the Mojave looked between drawn up face and oversized monitor and received murmurs of agreement from each before moving to the next thing on her mental political checklist.

"Yes Man, what is the current status of the new TACSIO units?"

"Last I heard all twelve had finished their objectives for training,"

"Excellent! Have the new Stealth Suits achieved a manufacturing status?"

"Doctor Klien said they had a few difficulties with integrating the Stealth Boy tech with the suits, but got it working eventually. Doctor Borous was, apparently, less then pleased by the lack of progress, mumbling stuff about 'adaptive communists' in the background of Klien's message,"

"Well, that's to be expected. They're all nuts over in the crater. Brilliant, but absolutely insane,"

The TACSIO units had been one of Nicole's more brilliant plans. Over the years since the Great War, some people had turned up and made major impacts on life in whole regions based on great combative skill, tactical prowess, intelligence, et cetera. Some of them ended up with weird nicknames that everyone referred to them as, such as the Vault Dweller, the Chosen One, the Lone Wanderer, even the Courier (although it was really just her job before she became the Queen) was a big one and had been her call sign throughout her wanderings of the wasteland. The Lone Wanderer was still alive, and apparently the savior of the entire Capital Wasteland region to the east, helping the Brotherhood of Steel in that region much like she had in the Mojave. He had even become an honorary member much like her, although his induction into the order was much less controversial. The Brotherhood of the Capital had adopted a series of different ideologies from the original western chapter, sort of a hybrid of the original chapter and the loathed mid-western Brotherhood. They had actually deigned to help people fight the super mutant horde in the D.C. ruins and even fought a great war with the Enclave again.

Those were the rumors though, few reports reached the bunker in Hidden Valley. Personally, the stories of a giant robot that fired nuclear lasers from its _face_ and the one squad that blasted through to the Jefferson memorial sounded more than slightly far-fetched, but, then again, she had done more or less the same thing against the Legion at Hoover Dam. A much _larger_ squad with the aid of the enclave remnants and Brotherhood Paladins, but no giant robot. The NCR troopers barely counted, the Legion had been massacring them when she arrived.

In any case, she had scouted amongst her new realm and had found several people with natural skills of fighting that rivaled even her own and had gathered them together and sent them to Big Mountain to receive advanced training fighting the thousands of lobotomites, robots, cyber dogs and various other failed experiments of the Think Tank. After rigorous training, it finally sounded like they had completed their assignments, and the new armor was available for use.

The new armor, designated Stealth Suit Mark III, was a big improvement (she thought) on the old Mark II's. After a lot of testing, both controlled and field tests, she had determined that it had several flaws. For one thing, the auto-med-x injector had been damped down so that it only used the heavily addictive drug when absolutely necessary to keep the wearer alive. Even then, it was to limit the dosage level to a safe, no addictive region.

Secondly, she had asked to include an actual invisibility feature into the armor, much like some of the Chinese armor prototypes she had seen. This particular feature had surprised the Think Tank, who for all being genius', were extremely thick at times. Sometimes they needed a good wallop on the head by something she called 'common sense'. Aside from those additions, she had insisted on updating the armor itself, introducing new bullet resistant metals and plastics that the Think Tank had developed for other things (such as a cage for Dala's 'Teddy Bears'). In fact, the only armor that was actually harder to penetrate was power armor, something that didn't exactly shout 'Stealth'.

The end result was a small team of extremely well trained and armed soldiers that would act as her special task force, much like the Legions _Frumentarii_ or the NCR's Rangers. These soldiers were to be known as Tactical Assault Command and Strategical Insertion Officers, with the acronym TACSIO (Pronounced Taak-see-o, similar to Taxi-o) or TAC for short (Tactical Assault Commander)(Pronounced like tack).

Having happily discovered that her elite special operations soldiers were on schedule, she then moved to her last, more then slightly controversial, topic she needed to talk about.

"Yes Man?"

"Yeeeessssss?"

"Right, um, have you heard any news of Benny lately?" she asked the grinning face on the screen hopefully.

"Nope, not a whisper. Why? Do you want to shack up with him again?" the screen asked the last part kindly, if still somewhat snidely in that weird way that Yes Man was snide. She groaned and rolled her eyes to the ceiling to search for strength. When nothing more then a speck of dust fell from above and landed in her eye, she answered his question.

"No, and why does even the robot that has no sex drive whatsoever, being, you know, a robot, that isn't even a _robot_ anymore and is a _screen_ and thus incapable of any sort of independent motion, want to know about my sex life?"

"I don't! I just like watching you grumble!"

Groaning she turned to an amused and triumphant Arcade and gave him a look that made him wilt a little.

"I don't know why your so happy _Chief Minister_. This means I have to go wandering again even sooner than _I_ expected! Which means your back to running the entire confederacy single handedly!" Arcades look of utter torment made her cackle a little before putting a hand on his shoulder and quickly patting it. "Don't worry Arcade, I'll go find where the smooth talking imbecile ran off to and drag him back here. Maybe in handcuffs if I can find some,"

"Kinky"

"Haha. Well, I'll rest up tonight in a real bed before leaving you alone with Raul and Yes Man,"

"What about that meeting with Cass tomorrow?" he asked.

"Weren't you going to deal with that when I didn't show up anyway? Just give her the money she needs to get that Caravan company of hers really going and competing with the Gun Runners and Crimson Caravan. Then, we get to shout something about a return on our investment when she is properly ensconced as the new trade mogul. Think about all of the tax income from that! Even at 5%, we are going to make a fortune!"

_(Authors Note; Once again, I never played Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, et cetera. Just 3 and New Vegas and all of their DLCs (although I haven't finished Lonesome Road yet. I had a glitch (what's new) and then got hooked to Dragon Age (blasted Bioware and their awesome games) so I may be missing or adding a few things with the NCR and whatnot. There are only so many things I can learn from the Wiki or infer from the other games._

_Again, I'm sorry for the ungodly long spaces between updates. I've just been out of a Fallout mood lately, but am getting back into it. I had some trouble getting going on this chapter, but eventually found my way out of the rut._

_Is it possible for 'strategic' to have an adjective form of strategical? Because my spell check says it doesn't exist (not that I believe it anymore, stupid eight year old system)._

_And yes, I did have to have the Monty Python reference in there. If you know it, great! If not... you clearly won't understand half of the humor that is in here, and I am really sorry about that. Not my humor, its quite awful, but the brand of humor._

_Also, if anyone wants to Beta this, I could use the help (obviously). I can never proofread my own work, and it might be a good idea to have a sounding board, as I never know when my general, all around insanity is taking the story to new and completely unintended places. Send my a PM if you are interested. If no one wants to I will be alright, I'll just huddle in my bed and cry myself to sleep because everyone hates me...(Bawls)(Slaps self in face)._

_Annnyyyyway, thank you for reading, and hopefully not hating, this story. Review if you wish; accolades, corrections, hatred, and death threats are accepted (well, you get the idea). Just review! Reviews, positive or negative, make me happy/ want to write more)._


	6. Discord and the Search for Benny

**Discord and the Search for Benny**

It was funny how a full night's rest on a sinfully comfortable bed could lead to an excessive amount of exhaustion the next day.

But sometimes that was how it was, as the Courier stumbled blearily throughout Freeside, for all the world like she was just off a three day drinking spree. Slowly, the old Mormon Fort came into view and she walked up to the ancient orange walls and slid past the gate. She glanced around to see if any changes had occurred since the last time she was there, more than a month ago, just a few days after the second battle of Hoover Dam. One of the first things she had done upon her return to the City had been to send the Followers there an exorbitant amount of money for refurbishing and resupply of medical equipment. Her already good relationship with the group had been solidified, and the de facto Hospital had been barely able to keep up with the wounded from the battles around the northern Mojave.

Ever since the first weeks after the battle, the Followers had been heavily overworked with the remaining wounded as well as their normal repertoire of sick people and addicts that they normally serviced. Nicole's funding of the group had been instrumental in allowing medical supplies and aid to be distributed amongst the people of Freeside. As such, her reputation with the Freesider's and wounded veterans of the battles in the area had increased from their already high levels to near idolatry, with both locals and squatters alike. There was still discontent with her reign of course, ad there was with an reign over the people, and one faction had even solidified against her rule, calling themselves the FFR (Freesider's for Free Reign).

They were a small, poorly funded, and generally considered to be more a sect of anarchists than the Follower's of the Apocalypse themselves. And they had little to offer in the way of an actual service to society, as they were ordinary people who were dissatisfied with the dictatorial reign of a courier, someone who had literally been little more than a glorified mailwoman a few months before, but had risen to great heights all for not fully disclosed reasons. Its not like the real story of, "She got shot in the head for an oversized poker chip and followed the shooter all the way around the Mojave to find him on the strip, bang him in his suite, and then let him go in Caesar's camp to take it upon herself to start a coup against House from her almost murderer's plan to take over the Strip, followed by playing the NCR and Legion against each other," sounded good as an advertisement for the monarch. Or rolled off the tongue. That was why most of the revenge part was downplayed in the early histories of the subject, and the part where she was an agent for House until he asked too much and stepped in to save the Wasteland from his mania.

Upon entering the courtyard of the fort, she saw that little had changed in the way of basic design and architecture, as most of the money she had provided to the followers went directly into herbs, drugs, and various other supplies for hacking into limbs and such. The only real changes in the physical appearance of the area was the addition of a few more tents in the cramped space and a general appearance of better beds amongst the tents. Most of these beds were occupied still. More money couldn't always help stop diseases, and the addicts were always going to be there so long as there were things to get addicted to.

"Good morning, miss," said a voice to her right. Turning quickly she saw a sweet faced young man dressed in a doctors coat, just off to the side of the gate moving towards her with a confidant stride. He was of average height and had dark not quite black hair, and a light stubble upon his face. He had a fairly even jaw line and straight amicable features. He was certainty attractive enough and by his stare he clearly thought she more than attractive enough, a gaze she had seen more than once in her travels. She might even have bedded him a while ago, but she had to start thinking in dynastic terms now. The queen showing up pregnant by some random stranger was not a good piece of evidence that pointed to effective decision making.

"Good morning whoever you are," she answered breezily.

"Oh, I'm very sorry, I am completely forgetting my manners. I am Doctor Francis Everett of the Follower's of the Apocalypse," he said as he came to a stop next to her, his grey eyes never leaving her green ones.

"Well I had guessed that you were with them. Not many people walk around in lab coats around the Fort and _aren't_ Follower's," she said airily. Clearly he either had no idea who she was, was crazily ambitious, or just thought she was hot, because his voice simply _oozed_ flirtation.

"Oh, of course. How silly of me, I should have known that someone as pretty as you would have an excellent brain in that head of yours. Pretty faces are no longer indicative of a lack of intelligence nowadays,"

"Perhaps not, the Deathclaws care little for appearances I've heard,"

"Could I perhaps know your name, miss?" he asked.

"I suppose you could, it's Nicole,"

"Ah! Not the same Nicole that is the Queen of this fair city?" his response at least eliminated the possibility that he had no idea who she was, leaving only her basic attractiveness (and while she was somewhat pretty, she was no beauty of the wastes either. The numerous scars across her body, and particularly the small round one just off the center of her head tended to put off some people, and her nose was a fair bit too long for the rest of her face, which, while a pleasant heart shape, had too many sharp angles framed by short, dark blonde hair to really qualify for more than passing attractiveness), and ambition. He didn't look at all emaciated, so he was probably somewhat well off, and most likely from the NCR. Few of the upper crust of Vegas society ever wanted to get their hands dirty and be doctors. His light accent also marked him as a Californian to one who knew the way they sounded.

That didn't mean she was going to get all affronted by his obvious attraction for her. Sometimes it felt good to be wanted.

"Perhaps I am? Why would that matter, Doctor Everett? I came here to see an old friend and ask about another," his eyes shifted when she said his name, as though he didn't really believe in it. Perhaps a he was a spy sent by the Republic? Obviously not one of the Legion, the handful of remaining frumentarii had been accounted for, leading splinter groups of Legionnaires against one another and such. No one else in the Legion possessed intelligence enough to move past "hit profligate with pointy stick, rape woman with less pointy stick". The NCR also had the probability of long term relations with her country, something even a reformed Legion would never have.

It certainly made sense, put an educated, attractive man into a group that she clearly favored, as a transfer, then have him watch her dealings. Or it could be an attempt to put an NCR puppet on the throne (such as it was, there really wasn't throne, she had quite simply declared herself monarch of Vegas and left it at that. No one would argue with an army of several thousand Securitrons). He might even be an assassin, sent to kill her in bed as she had attempted to do with Benny for her own revenge.

Or he could simply be a normal Doctor, devoted to saving lives and helping the downtrodden in any way possible. Maybe he just didn't like his name.

But if he was a spy, and just a spy, then this was a clear opportunity. Even if she couldn't convert him to directly spread false information to her erstwhile allies, knowing who her opponents spies were was half the battle. It might even be better, since he would not have the chance to betray her or make the information seem false by over-embellishing the lies where some naturally suspicious and paranoid analyzer in one of the NCR's spy network complexes nervous.

Or it might be nothing, he could be a normal guy who just wanted to get in her pants.

"Please my Queen, I mean no offense. And please, call me Francis. I am simply surprised that you have come to such a lowly place in your grand empire to see us poor doctors," he simpered. Point down, boy. Flattery of _her_ was alright, but the almost painful lowering of his own stature and raising of her own deserved nothing less than scorn and sarcasm. Lots.

"Why are you so surprised? Can't I come see the only truly functional hospital in Vegas? Perhaps I simply wanted to see a patient who is a friend here? Must you understand all of my dealings?" she went on in a grandiose voice, watching his expression carefully. If he seemed genuinely upbraided by her questions then he perhaps could be truly interested in only her. If he flinched at all, he was most likely after her for less than nominal reasons. And all she had wanted to do was check up on Julie and the Follower's and see if Emily had heard anything from Benny again, as she was one such double agent. The best kind, one that had never known she was a double agent and spy. She had simply kept her more or less apprised to Benny's location when she was still hunting him.

Wow she was paranoid and all spy-y today. Was it exhaustion? Maybe it was because she hadn't been laid since Veronica left to the east coast. Perhaps it was time to rectify that? Better to wait for his reaction.

He did flinch a little, but it appeared to be mostly caused from the anger and self importance in her own voice and less from the veiled exposition of his potential activities.

"My Lady, I was simply-"

"Trying to butter me up for Julie I suppose? Unnecessary. I helped out the Followers a good deal when I was wandering the wastes. Julie would happen to be one of the old friends I mentioned. By the way, you are clearly new here, when did you get transferred?" she asked, looking for more slip ups on his part. He was either totally oblivious or really good, as his replies revealed little.

"I came from the Hub My Lady. I have been with the Follower's for several years now and was just transferred last week. I am very sorry, I had simply assumed that you were new here and-"

"That's quite alright. I expected as much. I just wanted to knock that cocky little grin off of your face," she grinned at him as she said the last part. He seemed to sag with relief a little after that, whether from the rumors that she was a bloodthirsty torturer who execute anyone who got on her nerves (spread by the FFR no doubt) or because he felt that he had hidden his affiliation with the spymaster's of the Republic from her. Or he was simply nervous that he had irritated the most powerful person within at least a hundred mile radius.

"Yes, very well my Lady. May I escort you to Administrator Farkas?" he said, obviously desiring to get out of her presence before he either messed up the conversation more or let more slip of his true allegiance. She would make sure to talk to Julie about him, maybe she had noticed something.

"Sure, just don't do the whole grab arm thing. I never understood that,"

He walked next to her and pointed out a few things that were still fairly new to the Fort, including a few new strange contraptions of a medical nature that were supposed to scan a whole body to see where problems might be. She wasn't really well versed in medical technology, and had basically left all the healing and stuff to Arcade after he had joined her group. Before that, and whenever she had been out with the others or by herself, her medical knowledge wasn't exactly useless. She was more than capable of dealing with bullet wounds, cazador stings, bites, cuts, and other stuff, but anything more noteworthy than clearing a wound for an infection defeated her.

After a short walk, he opened up the flap of a tent and revealed the leader of the Followers in Vegas, reading a comic book about Grognak the Barbarian. When she heard the tent flap swish open she glanced up and saw Francis walking in and settled her comic back on the table next to her chair.

"Hi, Francis, what's going-" she paused when she saw Nicole walk in behind her doctor and broke into a broad smile as she stood up and rushed forward to envelope the smaller woman in a huge hug. Nicole was slightly taken aback at first, but remembered that Julie had been almost beside herself when almost ten thousand caps had been dumped in her still bloody lap after an unsuccessful surgery on an NCR trooper, and returned the hug, albeit with less enthusiasm. It felt like a super mutant was giving her a friendly hug, and having received some of those hugs from Lily, she was almost an expert on the subject.

"I can't believe your back! Where have you been, I haven't seen you since the day you got back from the dam!"

"Well you know, had to do the setup on running a country and all. Besides, the Follower's are one of the least dysfunctional groups I have to deal with. You don't want to know what is like trying to get the Brotherhood to reform, or get the Omerta's to not act like a bunch of idiotic upper class drug peddlers,"

"I'm sure. Still, it is great to see you again, you don't need any medical help do you?" asked the doctor who had finally let go of her vice like hug on Nicole and was standing back, as though she was checking her over for any burst of arterial bleeding.

"After that hug, I might, but its not what I came here for," Julie raised an eyebrow and caught Nicole's look that almost pleaded for her to get rid of the man just behind her that was even know leering at her backside. He had apparently forgotten her subtle warning, or simply hadn't realized she was far to perceptive to _not_ notice something like that.

"Doctor? Don't you have to attend to Mr. Harfler?" she asked the man who's gaze snapped back up to the head doctor's head and her ever present spiky mohawk. He nodded to her and bowed to the Queen, then he left, and Nicole almost gave voice to her relief at his departure. The constant staring had started to get on her nerves a little. He was either really lonely or a really bad assassin who had no idea how to get her in bed to lower her guard.

"Sorry about him," Julie continued, "He is a little... overzealous? Sometimes anyway,"

"So you haven't noticed anything off about him? No strange questions or suspicious behavior?" Nicole asked with a bit of concern. She needed to know if he was a spy or nor. If he was, she could deal with him one way or another, and if he wasn't, then she needed to know so she didn't accidentally kill an innocent, if leery, man.

"Nothing too odd no. Why do you ask?"

"I might just be being paranoid today, but he said and did a few things that concerned me a little. Like the potential espionage kind of concern,"

"Is he a spy your asking?" Nicole nodded at her and looked imploringly for a less paranoid opinion of the man, "Well I haven't noticed anything. He seems like a normal man, really good with resetting broken and dislocated bones, loyal to the basic principles of the Follower's, so not likely to head the Caesar route. He is a little ambitious though, so I _suppose_ he may have worked out some sort of deal with one of the higher ups back out west," said Julie. Despite technically being a citizen of the NCR, few of the Follower's really held to any nationalistic beliefs. They were more focused on helping people and educating them. Julie understood that Nicole was only trying to do that same thing, albeit through economic and political aid, and not medical, but the same thing still.

"But you don't think its likely," stated Nicole, phrasing it as a statement.

"No, I don't, he seems genuinely concerned with helping people and hasn't shown any particular association with the NCR. Maybe he is just a really good spy, but I haven't noticed anything unusual. Besides the leering and flirtation, he does that with every woman that comes through here, although he seemed particular towards you-"

"You said he was ambitious right? Maybe he is looking to be king of the Mojave?"

"Maybe. I hope not, I think you have enough issues to deal with right now,"

"No kidding. In fact, one of those issues is why I am here now," Julie's face fell a little after that. "Issues" with the Courier almost invariably led to gunfire and explosions. Nicole saw her face change, and held up her hand. "Nothing like that. I'm just looking for somebody,"

"Who?"

"Benny,"

"You mean the Benny that shot you," Julie deadpanned looking flatly at the shifting girl before her.

"Well... yes?"

"Why are you looking for him?"

"I want to offer him a job,"

"The Benny that SHOT you?"

"Uh huh,"

"Have you even considered the possibility that-"

"He might betray me, kill me, mess up the confederacy, and what have you? Yes I have, and personally, I doubt he will do any of those things. He had several opportunities to kill me when I was hunting him," she didn't bother mentioning that the most notable of those times was when she lay curled up in his arms, in his bed, in his suite, surrounded by his minions. Well, at least they weren't in the same room, that would have been... awkward. She shrugged, "besides, most of what I did was his plan in the first place. I think I did better than he did, and by his own admission when I freed him from Caesar's tent he even said I had done far better than he had expected,"

"Maybe. How do you expect to find him here?"

"I didn't, I wanted to talk to Emily. He has kept her in the loop before, and I wanted to find out if she had any idea of where he was,"

"Alright, I'll let you talk to her, just promise me one thing, if you do find him, keep an eye on him. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him and well..." she pointed to her arm, "that wouldn't be very far,"

"Don't worry, I plan to. You keep an eye on that Doctor Everett of yours too. He might just be trying to get on the throne with me, he might just be looking for bragging points, because, despite what my dear chief minister says, I am _not_ keeping the Confederacy going on the sex I hand around. He seems to think I'm some sort of Gomorrah whore being passed around the table at an unrestricted bachelor party,"

"Well..."

"Urgh, sleep with half a dozen people and you're suddenly the bicycle of the Mojave. What's a bicycle anyway?"

"Its like a motorcycle, just without the motor. The user uses their legs to push pedals around and that turns the rear wheel. Its something I can see returning to use actually, especially with that new plant freeing up the use of metals for other things. They could be very effective as a new mode of fast, personal transportation really. Its something you may want to think about reinventing,"

"So where did the whore to bicycle phrase come from?"

"Well apparently, most people in prewar days had bicycles, as children at least, and thus-"

"Everyone has had a ride, I get it. Its actually kind of funny I suppose. See if one of your more history oriented people would like to talk about it when I get back from my little adventure I have planned,"

"Sure. Emily is over in the corner. I think she is working on a new program for her computer. Something about using a satellite to take pictures of the terrain to try to match it to old world pictures to see what has changed and see where some pockets of radiation are,"

"Interesting, if you can, have her check on nearby populations, especially the NCR. We can use this to do some undetected spying of out own I think,"

"I'll check with her. I don't know what the resolution of the pictures will be, but it is certainty something worth trying. Just prevent the wars you see coming if you can,"

Nicole exited the tent after that, with a brief wave behind her and a promise to return at some point in the near future. She poked her head around and saw that Doctor Everett was not in sight, so she made a quick run to the corner of the fort and found Emily Ortal, with her head resting on the keyboard of an ancient terminal and an endless line of k's trailing across the screen and still continuing. Looking over the sleeping woman's shoulder, she saw that the page count was at three hundred and seventy nine and still counting. Stifling a chuckle, she gently touched the scientists shoulder and shook her awake.

"Huh, who's there?" she said blearily, although it came out as a single word that sounded more like "huhoosdare". Nicole laughed a little and shook the doctor harder, eventually really waking her up.

"Oh your majesty, I'm sorry, I was sleeping,"

"I could see that,"

"Right. Um, is there anything I can do for you,"

"Yes, I wanted to talk to you about a mutual acquaintance,"

"Who- oh, you mean Benny don't you?"

"Who else but Benny?" Emily grimaced at the reminder, but came fully upright in her chair and gave her full attention to the Queen.

"I haven't really heard anything from him since he left the Strip after you caught him there, so I don't think I will be much help," she said quietly.

"Unfortunately, you are all I have to go on. I just need to know anything that you might know about where he could be, or if you or someone else had seen him,"

"No I haven't, I would have told you if I had heard anything about him or that checkered suit of his," she looked a little upset that she had no information.

"Do you know anyone else that worked for him at all? Beside the Chairmen of course, I already talked to Swank and the others,"

"Not really," Nicole sighed and then bit her lip. This was her only lead, and Emily didn't seem to have anything. That left wandering the wastes until she stumbled across him, which didn't seem very likely. Maybe someone in Boulder city had seen him, but the only one left their was that old bartender ever since the NCR had been kicked out. He only even turned a profit at all because some of the engineers from Boulder city had moved into the area, and his bar was the only place they could really go for recreation. All other passerby stuck to the highway and went straight to the 188 trading post, bypassing the wrecked town. She had thought she could get the old boulder crushing plant going again, but it had been to dilapidated to be anything more than spare parts for the one over by the Las Vegas Steel factory in southwest Vegas.

Ever since the fiends had been cleared out of Vault 3 and the surrounding area, she had spent a lot of money in creating an extension to the Vegas walls to protect the area from raiders and creatures, and in recreating a basic industrial force for the few buildings down there, with Vault 3 acting as a sort of backup power grid and bedroom community for the workers she had enticed to go there. Not that most of the poor Freesider's had needed much coercion. Free, safe lodging and a respectable amount of income was a pretty strong argument in her favor, and something she could offer easily enough. Between the cash she made from the Casino's and her own personal fortune, she was almost certainly the richest person in the western United States, if not the world. Not that much was known about the rest of the world. All she knew was that there were no vaults anywhere else, but even with the thousands of nukes, she doubted that the Americans were the last people remaining in the world.

"Wait!" said Emily suddenly, jerking her from her wandering thoughts, "I just remembered, he once said that he had a contact over in Westside, someone named Susan Dubois,"

"I've never met her,"

"Oh I'm sure you met her actually, she doesn't go by that name anymore she goes by 'Sweetie' I think. I'm pretty sure she's-"

"A whore. Yep, I have met her. Well, thanks for the tip Emily, I'll warn you if anything comes of it," she stood up and made a motion to leave. As she exited the tent and pushed the coarse flap out of the way, she saw something strange. A man was crouched down next to the front gate and his fingers were moving quickly. Her naturally suspicious mind brought up several unhealthy thoughts, and she quickly but quietly moved to the shadows on the east side of the fort, not taking her eyes off of the man, who fumbled with something before standing up and running away from the door.

Her mind moving past the muttered suspicions to screaming alarm bells, she tossed caution to the winds and got up to run towards the door, only to feel someone grab her arm and pull her in towards their body. The person grabbed her other arm and forced her against the wall as she struggled against their grip, kicking them in the shin and hearing a pained curse behind her before her head was smashed against the ancient stone wall of the fort.

Seeing stars in her vision, she pulled her arm forward until she could see the man's arm holding her, and bent her neck down and bit hard into the flesh, she heard a screech from behind her as her mouth tasted the man's blood. She ripped her head back, tearing out a small chunk of flesh and spitting it out before slamming back into the weakened body behind her, before she came crashing down on top of him. As she hit the ground, her head snapped up and fell down again, crashing into his lower jaw. Feeling blood on the back of her head and unsure of who's it was, she decided to end this fight quickly.

She flipped over and drove her fist into the man's ribs, seeing for the first time that he was wearing a doctor's coat. That made him either one of the Follower's or an imposter, something she would have to check on with Julie once she finished up with him, keeping him alive if she could. And after she checked on the-

A massive explosion blasted out from the door, and the shockwave of it knocked over most of the tents around her. She looked up and saw a miniature mushroom cloud expanding above it and a few chunks of wood and stone going up from where the gate had been only to come crashing down amidst the thrashing tents of the Follower's, which still contained the doctors and their many patients. Her citizens.

Suddenly, she felt a fist connect with her jaw, knocking her off of her position straddling the phony doctor, and she felt his hands grasp at her neck before she slipped one of the many knives hidden about her person from its place and jabbed it into the side of his stomach. She didn't want to kill him, not yet anyway, she wanted answers for this.

As he rolled off here clutching his side in pain, she started to hear gunfire ringing throughout the fort, as whoever was attacking the hospital and the handful of guards that the Follower's had began to exchange fire. She looked at the man again and quickly tied him to one of the more sturdy posts around her with some surgical wire before jumping up to help the guards defend the fort, cursing her lack of anything heavier than a pistol, but delighting in the one she had, the powerful .45 auto of the former Malpais Legate himself. Pulling it from the holster on her hip she checked her clip, despite knowing that it was full and bolted toward an overturned gurney, using it to take cover as she surveyed the battle from the side.

There were probably thirty or so attackers in all, five of which were already laying on the ground, clutching wounds or not moving at all. She also saw that of the perhaps six guards that had been in the camp, only two were actually on duty, and the other four had all just grabbed guns and started firing. Of them two were already down, and the others were pinned down behind wreckage and the barricade near where the gate had been. The gate was completely gone, and she could hear the crackle of the mini nuke explosion and her pip-boy warning her of a small amount of radiation. The explosion had taken a chunk out of each side of the wall, and the end without a solid tower looked to be collapsing slowly outwards. As she looked at it, another section of stone collapsed over the new, wider entrance right on top of one of the attackers. She looked at the attackers and saw that they all wore basic combat or leather armor and were using fairly simple weapons like hunting rifles, service rifles, sub-machine guns, and pistols. They all seemed reasonably well trained, but weren't exactly TACSIO material.

She leaned around the corner of her gurney and fired off six snap shots into the attacker ranks, taking down four of them, before reloading and moving to the other side of her makeshift cover and firing at more of the attackers, who were distracted enough by her surprise flank attack to let up on the remaining guards, who took the opportunity to return fire on the attackers. After taking down another four of the enemy men, they began to fire at her gurney as well as the guards, but they were able to return fire enough to keep from being pinned down.

Suddenly, a grenade landed next to her, and mouthing a curse, she rolled over it and tossed it over the heads of the attackers, hoping that it would at least get far enough away from her to not blow her to bits. Fortunately it did, unfortunately, it exploded harmlessly in the air. Her action also rolled her out from her cover, and she gasped in pain as a bullet hit the back of her calf as she sprinted to find cover amidst the rubble. The pain made her stumble a little, but she rolled behind one of the large rocks that had been blown out from the wall, and gasped as she wacked her injured calf against the ground when she came down. Knowing the drill by this point, she quickly plucked a stimpack out from her armor and injected it just above the wound, feeling the skin knit back together. She groaned as the agony of the bullet wound went down to a dull, throbbing ache, and looked back over the rubble at the gunfight.

Only one of the Follower's guards was still fighting, crouching down behind the central guard position and firing accurate potshots at the remaining attackers from his cover, the others were either dead or wounded. She looked over at the attackers and saw that there were only a dozen left. Poking her head over the rock, she held her pistol out before her, and fired off another clip into the men concentrating on the last guard. She fired six rounds and got six headshots.

That was when a few of her guard Securitrons trundled by and opened up a missile barrage on the remaining attackers, blasting a few of them into the air and killing the rest. Waving to the Securitrons to cease fire, she jogged down to the attackers and checked the pulse of each, only two were still alive, and one of them managed to crack a cyanide tooth before she could stop him. It looked like three of the others had done the same before she could get to them. After knocking the last survivor unconscious before he could crack his own caplet, she yanked the offending tooth out and tied him to the flagpole, pausing to check on the last guard, who was pale but still breathing and conscious from what looked like at least five bullets in his chest at least. Injecting him with a stimpack and some med-x to dull the pain and making sure to send one of the Doctors to him, she checked on the other guards, all of whom were dead. After checking on them, she moved through to find some of the doctors and breathed a sigh of relief to see a bloodied, but otherwise alright, Julie Farkus directing some of the more mobile patients and Follower's to get the wounded out from the collapsed tents and to a place where they could be taken care of. Checking to make sure the administrator was more or less unharmed, she went to the other corner and found the man that had attacked her and was unsurprised to see him both conscious and struggling to get out of the surgical wiring she had wrangled him into.

She stomped over to him and smacked him in the side of the head before grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him up so that she could look at him in the eye.

Francis Everett's grey eyes stared at her in terror.

_(Author's note: Not bad for time is it? Just a week or so. I would have posted it Saturday, but I was home again and thus had no internet, there is a stupid lack of internet and cable where I live sadly. I'm also waiting to here from a potential Beta, and I would rather do that before posting this chapter. Well, its posted tonight (11-28-11) its because I haven't heard from them yet, and I'll just have them go over the next chapter (which is done as well, I wrote _a lot_ this weekend). Oh well, I'm sure nobody minds if it is a day or so later than I wanted it to be, considering the time frame of the last updates. Since I am already done with the next chapter, hopefully I will be able to update this every week or so from here on out if I don't get distracted by all the new games coming out right now._

_Finally, some action! I hope it wasn't too bad, and if anyone has any advice or criticism whatsoever, please feel free to voice it in a review or PM, I _enjoy_ criticism, even the criticism that says I should jump of a cliff. Not that I'm that masochistic, but..._

_Anyway, I hope you all liked it, and I look forward to making it better in the near future._

_Also, I have given up with the page break system and I will simply italicize the Author's notes from here on out, including the ones of the previous chapters. When I get around to updating them anyway)._


	7. TAC Thirteen

_Yay! Torture section mwahhahah! No its not too bad, I hope anyway. Just a little around the edges, and perfectly legal. Well, Nicole can legally do anything, but...that's beside the point._

_I also still haven't heard from that potential Beta this week, so this is still unsupervised. Also, the lack of reviews for the last chapter saddens me greatly. Even if you just want to say it is good or bad that is quite alright. I ask for constructive criticism, but anything for a review makes me very happy._

TAC Thirteen

His eyes grew larger as she dragged him up and threw him bodily into the nearby wall. He gasped when he made contact and shrunk down to the base and looked at her with sheer terror.

"Who are you," she growled at him.

"F-F-Francis-" she slapped him. He was responsible for the deaths of at least the five guards, who knew how many patients and Follower's had been caught in the explosion or crossfire. They had probably needed to kill some people out on the road just to get in, and the guard Securitrons stationed outside of the fort must have been disable some how, which made an almost impossibly easy case of Treason. Especially when the grand Judge of the entire Mojave had been witness to the attack and had no silly little law to prevent her from skinning him alive!

"Who are you really? You stopped me from getting to the bomb or warning everyone about it! You attacked me right here! You should be glad I don't summarily execute you piece of filth!"

"I, I but I-"

"Should stop stuttering! Tell me the story, the _real_ story. I want to know who you are, I want to know who you work for, and I want to know why you did it!" she grabbed him by the front of his lab coat again and threw him around her so that hid face was driven into the dirt next to her. He tried to stand up on shaking limbs, but she drove her foot onto his back and pressed him to the ground. She took her foot off him for a moment, only to kick him onto his back with a sharp jab to his ribs. Nearly sobbing with pain, he raised his bruised, tied up hands to her in a gesture for clemency. Growling to herself, she stood back from him and folded her arms; although she kept her loaded pistol in her hand if he decided to not cooperate. She always had the other guy right? Maybe he would answer her questions.

But for now, it was better to proceed and hopefully get two correlating stories that seemed plausible.

"Talk," she snarled at him.

"A-alright, I'll tell you. I was with the Freesider's for Free Reign. They seemed to have the right idea, at least initially, preventing a dictatorship-"

"Oh for God's sake! When have I ever actually _exercised_ my full power? I only have it to keep competing interests from tearing the confederacy apart!"

"What is to stop you from abusing that power though? There is nothing! Only your own morals, and maybe the Chief Minister, although he has been in your pocket long enough that he may just turn a blind eye as well," every so often he stopped to groan or breathe heavily or occasionally spit blood and teeth from his soaking red mouth. His hands stayed on his knife wound as he attempted to apply pressure on it. She was in no mood to help him now, and would only give him a stimpack once she was done with him or he passed out. She didn't really care which.

"Your power, which you may use for good now, is almost limitless! Absolute power corrupts absolutely! You must know this! We tried to take it slow and simply spread our opinion and form a loyal opposition, but with what! We have no say in how our own country is ruled!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. A whole bunch of political opinion nonsense. You do realize that in a year or so I am going to move to an at least semi-democratic state right? And Arcade would kill me if I went all egomaniacal and power-hungry. He has just as much control of those 'bots as I do,"

"But what is there to make you do that save a simple doctor?"

"Hey, he is a doctor who is an excellent shot, and stomps around in Tesla Power Armor! Not so simple. Wait a minute... stop with the double talk and arguing and answer my questions! What is your real name?"

"Francis Caveron, I really am a doctor with the Follower's, and I had nothing to do with this attack!"

"Riiight, so you just so _happened_ to try and kill me just as an attack from a group you admit to being a part of, just so _happens_ to attack the fort I am in, in a terrorist attack on a _hospital_. Check that, the _only_ real hospital in the entire confederacy,"

"I... know it sounds, um, bad like that, but I uh, just wanted to talk to you,"

"Yes, slamming my face into a wall is the _normal_ way for people to strike up a conversation, I totally agree,"

"I um, well-"

"Oh stop it! Just tell me what the attack was for,"

"It wasn't an attack,"

"Yes it was, you can't deny that,"

"But it wasn't you see-"

"_Yes_ it was. _You_ see, when one person grabs another's arm and then drives them into a wall, most people consider it be an 'attack'. I would say, 'all' people consider that a attack, but you have clearly just proven me wrong," this was getting ridiculous. If he didn't just tell her she was going to have to move to ripping his fingernails off. She really didn't want to do that. Not since Inculta anyway.

"I, uh, well, I, oh fine. This was all a big mistake-"

"You're really the King of the R.O.U.S.? Wow, I had to idea your majesty,"

"Um, no, that's not it all. Wait, R.O.U.S. exist?"

"There just twice the size of normal giant rats, no big deal. Back to your confession?" he grimaced again and shifted his arms a little bit to allow him to move back to a sitting position while still keeping his hands on the still bleeding knife wound in his side.

"Fine, when we first started talking when you came in, I apparently got mixed signals. From what you said after you yelled at me a little, I, kind of thought, you wanted to get together and-"

"So you grabbed me because you thought I wanted rough wall sex in the middle of the day, in the middle of a wide open courtyard full of people,"

"Well, I meant to just whisper in your ear a little, maybe ask to go over to your place or something, but then you started beating me up, and at first I thought you wanted it right there," she couldn't believe this. She was going to _kill_ Arcade for spreading those whore rumors about her. Apparently, she was the type of girl that liked it all "rough and raunchy" or something. She might have slept with eight people since her little accident over by Goodsprings, but she was not a whore! Or even into kinky sex. "So, I tried to play along, and then you started really going at it, and the next thing I knew you had buried a knife in my gut. Then I woke up and was tied to this post by some surgical wire,"

"So you are telling me, you thought I wanted some rough, kinky sex, and I would take you, some guy I only met this morning, into my secure Casino to perform such acts on my person? Your not that good at talking up girls you know. Especially political animal girls who happen to have tens of thousands of lives on their shoulders,"

"Well I thought-"

"Wrongly. Now, assuming I even believe you, which I am going to need some more evidence to even really consider, why on _earth_ would you try that when I started fighting back? How do you know I wouldn't think you were some deranged killer that had slipped past the guards, or an assassin out to kill me? Why would I not fight back?"

"I...I'm sorry, I didn't really think," he did look quite ashamed of himself, and the blood loss had probably reduced his ability to lie enough so there was a good chance he was at least telling part of the truth. it was much more likely that he was involved with the attack, and had simply tried to distract her from the attack, or maybe he was an assassin that simply hadn't gotten laid in a while, and wanted to take advantage of the poor defenseless Queen of the wastes, before killing her.

It would be awful assassin technique, but it was still possible. Could just be her paranoia playing up again, it did that whenever bad things were going to happen. Which of course made it very useful _as _paranoia.

"Who are the leader's of your organization, and why would they want to move from peaceful protests and whatnot, to an all out assault?"

"Well, our leader's name was Antonio Dumat, and he was the core founder of the group. There were only about thirty of us total-"

"Thirty? That's about how many we killed, maybe we got your whole group,"

"You killed them all!" he shouted at her, again struggling with his restraints. Her pistol trained in on his head, and he stopped but had moved to glaring at her with a sudden, virulent hatred.

"All but one, idiots took cyanide pills in their teeth. Speaking of which-" she grabbed his jaw quickly, and although he tried to snap at her, she was able to work her fingers into his mouth to check it for false teeth. Seeing one, she grabbed it and easily yanked it out, not even earning a groan from Francis, before stepping back and examining the tooth before crushing it in between her fingers. Sure enough, a small amount of the infamous suicide concoction seeped out from the crumbled remnants of the tooth.

"Yep, not part of it all," she said with a wide grin as she rubbed the poison into the dirt next to her, keeping her gun steady on his face. He spat at her this time, although she caught it with her gloved hand and wiped the saliva off of her hand.

"Now is that anyway to treat a lady, especially a Queen? I think not," her hand snapped into the side of his face and knocked him back to ground. He moaned, and she kicked him in the same place she had before to flip him back over, before pressing her boot against the nasty bite wound she had left on his arm.

"Now, tell me the real story," she growled at him as he screamed in agony. After a moment, she relented some of the pressure and stood back with the gun still trained on his face as he gasped and sobbed below her.

"Ah, alright, just d-d-don't hit me again, I give, I give!" she motioned for him to continue with her gun.

"My job was to wait until you got there, then keep an eye on you. I was supposed to engage you with conversation, and make sure you weren't just some lookalike. You obviously weren't, so I sent the signal when we started walking to Julie's tent,"

"Doesn't explain the flirting. Bad, flirting, by the way,"

"I know. Its just, you were so pretty and-"

"Its funny how the pretty girl always gets the other side to fall for them,"

"Yeah, haha whatever. Anyway, I had hoped to be able to follow you around so that I could incapacitate you when the attack started and the bomb went off. I had hoped that you would be startled by the explosion enough to allow me to grab you and force you down. That didn't work because Julie sent me away, so I had to try and keep an eye on you. When Jacob, the one who set the bomb off inside the fort, came through, I saw you come out of Emily's tent and see the bomb being set off. I needed to stop you or the plan would fail,"

"So you attacked me and tried to knock me out of the battle long enough for your friends to get to me and complete your little coup," she was about to hit him again when he raised his tied together arms off of his knife wound again.

"Wait! We never wanted to kill you! Killing you was an absolute last resort. We wanted to capture you, take you back to the Lucky 38 and have you disable the Securitron network until a formal representative or democratic system could be established. We would not kill you if at all possible. We never disagreed with many of your reforms, none enough to warrant an _attack_ anyway. Your supreme power needed to be ended, before you turned into another House," he looked at her plaintively, and she sighed before lowering the gun. She hated their methods, and, personally, their target, but she couldn't deny that a little sliver of temptation did draw at her a little. She wasn't superhuman, she wanted things to be a certain way, and she could easily fall to her own power and influence. The majority of the people loved her enough to probably even get away with it with a positive public opinion!

She just couldn't do it. All that power had little use except to bring to reign people who wanted to destabilize her rule. She was focused entirely on reestablishing an economic, industrial, and educated country that could act as (she hated the metaphor, but it worked well in a public relations sort of way) a "shining beacon to the rest of humanity". It sounded almost unbearably corny, but was basically what she was after.

She didn't even want to keep full power for herself. Eventually, people would forget how she saved them from becoming slaves, or being conquered and exploited, and they would want to run the government themselves. It was better to be proactive then appear to be succumbing to public pressure to surrender her power, which is why she had proposed to Arcade to start setting up the framework for a somewhat representative form of government, where she was still the supreme power, but had a real board of advisors that could keep her in line and help her run the day to day business of a whole country. They were still working on the plan, and Arcade didn't want her to publically announce it until they had the whole thing in place, but the essential plan was for each town or group to have some sort of representative for their interests. Each town or group would select their representative themselves and send them to the Lucky 38. Beyond that, each community had their own rules and regulations and were allowed to basically do whatever they wanted, so long as it didn't lead to foreign adventures or infighting.

Not that she could just tell everyone now, or it would become a real democracy where everyone could vote on everything and have little to no representation whatsoever. That might work well for an individual town, but it could not work for a county with over sixty thousand inhabitants. House was right about more than a few things, and one of those things was that democracies didn't really work. The mob was stupid, and could be influenced by the slightest of things.

"Your pragmatic at least, few people now are. No more questions. Although I hope you don't expect to get out of this easily," she growled at him. He would certainly pay for this attack, one way or another. Citizens of her confederacy were dead, and she was feeling a bloodlust.

After untying Francis from the pole and literally dragging his body over to the doctors, she went to find the other man she had captured. He gave her more or less the same trouble that Francis had (minus the whole rape thing), but eventually told her a story that matched up fairly well. Not so much that it seemed rehearsed, but enough so that it was probably the truth seen from two different perspectives. She walked over to Julie who had been coordinating the rescue efforts while nursing a light bullet wound where she had been hit high in the shoulder. It hadn't been serious, and the bullet had just caught the edge of her skin and passed all the way through, but it still looked like it hurt.

"So did you find out who did this?" she asked when Nicole strode up to her.

"The FFR of course. The Legion would have had more machetes and skirts, and the NCR would have just had one of their snipers or rangers blow my head off from a thousand yards away," she grimaced at the thought. Her head was tough, more so since the Think Tank had fiddled around with it, but it would probably still explode when a fifty caliber bullet was introduced to it. Not that she was going to test that particular hypothesis if she could at all help it.

"So, why did they do it? Did you find out from our 'guests'?" asked Julie, jerking her left thumb behind her to point vaguely to where the two prisoners were being treated under heavy guard from some of the local Securitrons that had moved in secure the area.

"Basically, they don't want me to have unlimited power. The thing they have been complaining about, so, hopefully anyway, they just thought they saw the opportune moment and took it,"

"Will this happen again?" asked Julie.

"Maybe. I don't really know, both of them said that the entire organization was here, apparently they only had a few people in total, but I don't know if we missed a few. I'm inclined to believe them though, they seemed earnest enough, and their goals aren't really radical or reactionary, they're fairly moderate honestly. Give up absolute power for at least restrained power. Not that impossible, its just..." she trailed off and shook her head, rubbing her fingers through the blonde hair and coming away with a fair amount of grit and blood. Apparently it was to be back to the Lucky 38 for a shower and a tongue lashing from Arcade for not having proper security. Maybe she could get away with just Raul or Cass who was supposed to be up there today anyway, but she doubted if Arcade would let her leave the building without a full contingent of Securitrons, which, while protecting her, didn't send a very confident message.

"Just that its not time yet," said Julie soothingly.

"Exactly,"

"When will it be time?"

"When Arcade and I finish up the plan for exactly who will be who,"

"Huh?"

"You'll be one of the who's Julie, don't worry, the Follower's do to much for us for us not to offer you the position,"

"I still haven't figured out the 'who will be who' part, but if I understand you correctly, you want us to take up a direct position in governing the confederacy,"

"Yep, pretty much,"

"I don't think I can do that," Nicole looked back to Julie, who looked sad but firm.

"Er, why?"

"Because the Follower's of the Apocalypse can't really have a direct link to a political machine,"

"Why not? Arcade seemed fine with it,"

"That is because Arcade is an idealist, one who tends to forget that allies are just as useful when they are neutral,"

"Huh?"

"You can't have everything directly in your corner. Groups that are neutral towards you but not directly aiding you do not gain the ire of your opponents. Because they do not become hated by one side, they are free to remain neutral and provide aid to both sides. That is what we focus upon, medical and educational aid for all the people we can find. Rallying against the Legion was one of the few and hopefully only times that we will ever directly aid any government in war. Besides, if we joined your confederacy, that would include the rest of the Follower's as well, just as it includes the entirety of the Brotherhood of Steel,"

"So you can't join us,"

"Sadly no, but we can still help you,"

"Sure, sure," sighed the Courier, "although now, I am going to need to foist the medical and education districts off on poor Arcade and Veronica. No one else has any sort of knowledge with either of those things. Or at least, no one I can trust, and Veronica won't be back to help out again until she is back from the east coast, and that won't happen until... probably four or so months from now,"

"I'm sorry, Nicole, but we can't be directly involved," Julie gave her a another sad smile before turning back to help one of the injured that had suddenly gone into cardiac arrest. Leaving the doctors to their job, Nicole walked over to the last person she needed to see, the last guard that had still been fighting. He was strapped to one of the surviving gurney's smoking a cigarette and staring off into the middle distance. Not knowing his name or how to address him, she simply walked up next to him and waved her arm in his face to attract his attention. He glanced up and his eyes refocused on her face. She could see them calculating as he looked her over once before determining she was not an immediate threat, he resumed drawing in the smoke from his cigarette.

"I wanted to talk to you," she asked him, knowing that directness was the way to go for his type. He looked to be in his early thirties, maybe very late twenties if she was generous, and had more scars across his face than she had across her entire body. Stimpacks tended to get rid of most scarring, which meant either he had been fighting nonstop since the day he was born, or he had been stuck in long term bad situations with no support, either way, it made him valuable.

"About the attack I suppose," he said around the cigarette. He blew another puff of acrid smoke out of the side of his mouth.

"Yes. Did any of the other guards make it?" he shrugged, but at least took the foul smelling stick out of his mouth before answering.

"I think one of them is going to pull through. The other four are dead though,"

"Where did you learn how to shoot like that? And don't say something about always being able to shoot like that or just figuring it out. Anyone can shoot a gun, not everyone can fire off accurate shots behind cover, after being hit by a bunch of bullets themselves," the corners of his mouth twitched into something resembling a smile before dropping back down to an impassive frown.

"I wasn't going to. That's the sort of thing experts say to get rid of the riffraff, or lucky amateurs say to attract attention. I was a ranger for a while with the NCR, but got sick of the political undermining and pure stupidity. So, last time I came up for a discharge, I took it and I've been her ever since,"

"I've never seen you here, was that discharge right around the second battle of Hoover Dam?" she asked him.

"Sort of, the day after the battle, which you clearly had your hands all over, a few guys deserted to your side, and no one could be sent after them because your little bots had those missile launchers of theirs trained right on us. So I took the opportunity when it came. Although I at least asked for a real discharge. The deserters didn't seem to hear that they were handing those discharges out like candy, but I took one and got out before something even worse happened. Like you decided that you could just destroy the entire army, with me in it,"

"So you came here and you've been a guard ever since?"

"Sounds about right, yep," he took another drag of his cigarette, and let the smoke swirl about his lungs before releasing it in another puff of smoke.

"Have you ever considered joining the military here?"

"What? Why would you need lousy humans when you have a hoard of nasty little super robots?" he was somehow able to look at her both like she had gone insane, and like she had hit upon a brilliant plan.

"Well, humans tend to be more intelligent then a batch of roving A.I.s, and I am looking for smart and effective fighters to join a special group that I have been developing in secret,"

"What if I refuse? You just told me about your group,"

"Yeah but you only heard me say that it exists, not where it is, who or what is in it, or even what its call sign is. That's not very useful, even if you are a spy," she watched him mull over that in his head for a few moments before pulling himself upright in the bed, with only a flicker of pain in his eyes to show for the many bullet wounds he had taken in the firefight.

"Alright, say I want to join this little commando group you have going, what is in it for me, and secondly, what makes you so sure you can trust me?" he kept his eyes focused on her, although he still looked like he might pass out at any moment.

"Alright, to answer your second question first, how could I trust anyone that I don't have direct control over like the Securitrons? Besides, you just helped me fight off a horde of guys bent on taking over the whole Mojave, so you are obviously not with them, I could _smell_ it if you were Legion, and while you were with the NCR, you don't seem the type to go in for a cover operation, more the type for shooting things. Even if you are, I could just check the discharge papers myself. The NCR was not coherent enough right after the loss at the Hoover Dam to do anything other than gibber, they would not have sent in a deep cover agent on the off chance that he might get privy to any decent intel. So, you are either a wicked* good spy or assassin or whatever, or you are exactly who you say you are. I'm going to bet on that,"

"Secondly, or well, firstly I suppose, what you get out of it, is something that basically equals a commission in the army, access to advanced training and super advanced equipment, and a decent starting salary," she grinned the last part at him. The Follower's, for all their depth of knowledge and good reputation, had little money, and spent almost all of it on new research and medical aids. The guards got paid very little and mostly relied on the benefits, such as somewhere to sleep and access to the medical equipment they helped protect. A decent pay from her however, was probably somewhere in the thousands of caps range.

She could see him struggling to make a decision. She could understand his hesitation, the Follower's were good people, and working for them was a nice thing to do, if more than somewhat boring until the front gate exploded. They had also lost most of their guards today, and would need to hire off-the-street mercenaries to keep the fort protected, especially now that it had been attacked. Besides, joining the military again would mean a lot more bullets then he was used to, especially given the job she had planned for him.

"I will leave a small group of Securitrons here to cover the lack of guards until Julie can hire some more, and I will pay to have the gate rebuilt," she offered him. She was going to do those things anyway, but at least knowing that he wouldn't be leaving a gaping hole in the guard network would be a good enticement. He sighed after she said it, and she could see that his decision was made.

"Alright, I suppose I can't turn it down. I won't be able to go anywhere until my wounds are healed though," he warned her. She nodded, and told him that that would be fine and to go to the Lucky 38 when he was recovered.

"Arcade will send you on your way," he looked confused for a moment when she said Arcade's name, "The Chief Minister," she supplied, and his confusion vanished.

"Just tell the gate Securitron there that a new taxi is arriving, it will understand and send you up," she turned to go and had already started walking toward the gaping hole in the wall where a dozen Securitrons were surveying a small crowd that had gathered, when she heard his voice again behind her.

"You know you haven't even asked me my name yet," he said, looking at her with a slight grin.

"You're right! I haven't. I've gotten so famous that most people can't wait to introduce themselves to me. They seem to think I will remember it better if they start off with it," he chuckled and muttered something, to which she raised an eyebrow, but he just waved it off.

"My name is Caleb Drumstess, your Majesty, and it is a pleasure to meet you,"

"Alright then, I hope you will enjoy your new unit, TAC Drumstess,"

_Before anyone even considers it, no he is _**NOT**_ the Lone Wanderer, he is just a guy I made up halfway through the last chapter after deciding that I needed a few original characters that didn't try to rape/kill poor Nicole and her vast array of weaponry and fighting skills. And robots and various other nasty little things._

_I have a basic plan for this story that goes to Part 7 (this is still part 1) and he (the Lone Wanderer) won't show up for a good while yet._

_* wicked- really, really good. Maybe one in a hundred of those reading will understand that, if even that many. For example, one would say "wicked good" when something is almost unfathomably awesome/good. I can't help it, my dialect does occasionally come up._

_I actually finished this chapter before I even posted the last one. Lack of internet really makes me want to write. Hopefully, no one gets to upset that I withheld it for a while. I am trying to get into a rhythm, and this will give me time to work on the next chapter. Hopefully, there won't be too many more chapters before I am done with the first part and can start moving on to more exciting things (i.e. Lonesome Road. Basically, I tried (and failed) to hold out writing this until Lonesome Road came out because I thought it would be some big exposition on the Courier's life before s/he got caught by Benny when delivering the Platinum Chip. Obviously, I have been disappointed so far (although i was never able to finish it due to one of those lovely system crash game breaker glitches that I keep getting, and I haven't worked up a new Courier yet (I got addicted to Dragon Age, then Saints Row the Third, and have only made it to Honest Hearts (and most of the regular quests in the main storyline except for the upper level NCR/House/Yes Man quests, because doing any of those will cause the others to be unattainable)._

_I don't know how soon I will be able to get the next chapter up, as I have finals coming up in just over a week, so I will probably be studying (read; thinking about maybe possibly studying all of the time, without actually doing any studying. Its a good thing I pay attention in class)._


	8. Westward Bound

Westward Bound

The final body count from the assassination attempt at the Old Mormon Fort had been less than she expected, but she supposed having a veritable army of doctors on the premises had minimized the damage somewhat. Still, finding that all but two of the local guards were dead, as well as three of the Follower's and nine of the people that were in the fort when it was attacked was still an indicator of the attacks potential success. If she hadn't heard or felt or whatever, Francis's attack, the coup might have been successful, as the guards were taken by surprise, and the Securitrons couldn't attack them if she was their prisoner. Even with her detecting the attack, she had still received a minor bullet wound in her calf, although she had fixed it easily enough with a stimpack.

All in all, the attack could have been much worse, and at least she had removed all (or at least most) of the conspirators. That didn't mean that internal threats weren't ever going to happen again, but she was sure that in a few years when everything had calmed down (assuming it actually did), there wouldn't be many more issues, particularly after she started work on creating a real, long term, government. Hopefully one that could and would survive her death.

Not that she was going to completely give up her position. Her intent was to create some sort of basic representative system from all of the towns and various factions in the confederacy, and form a real confederacy, albeit, with an immensely strong head of state and government.

Arcade's rant on her personal safety following the attack had been even worse than she had expected. Despite that, she was able to get away with just her faithful robot bodyguard, ED-E and the old ghoul mechanic/vaquero, Raul, one of her companions from her time exploring the Mojave and righting its (many) wrongs. She was actually surprised by this leniency from Arcade, but he had pointed out that an old sewer entrance had been discovered that led directly to the Thorn, and would thus take her away from most other assassination attempts.

And the Securitrons couldn't fit in the dank tunnels, so he couldn't send her through the safe route and have a whole army at her back.

So, she and her robot and ghoul guards had gone through the ancient tunnel and had come up in Westside, without seeing the, more than slightly crazy, mistress of the Thorn, Red Lucy, who was also a former lover of the Courier. Apparently, killing a bunch of monsters of the wastes and bringing in their eggs was something of a turn on for the woman, who had invited Nicole into her bed. The Queen, having been horny at the time, had accepted happily, but had been less than enthused upon waking up and discovering that Lucy wanted her to try a threesome. With one of the young Deathclaws.

After sneaking out of the Thorn, they had gone through the south gate of Westside and walked up to the Casa Madrid Apartment building and strode up to Pretty Sarah, the burnt woman who ran the Brothel part of the business there.

"Hi Sarah, I'm here to see Sweetie," said Nicole breezily to the pimp of the Casa Madrid Apartments whorehouse. The old grey building looked just as it had back when she had first seen it during her wandering days. That is, old, grey, and falling apart. She wasn't really interested in providing funds for such houses of ill repute, which for Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler, wasn't an issue, but Westside had always been a struggling independent community. That meant that few people had enough money to pursue the services that the brothel provided.

Besides, the old place stank of sex, sweat, and drugs and probably hadn't been cleaned since the Great War.

"That will be three hundred caps, _Queen_," growled the purveyor of the establishment. She had never liked the Courier, even when Nicole had told her of her rapist's rather gruesome death. Perhaps it was because Nicole had encountered Cook-Cook of the fiends and gotten out of the confrontation with barely a scratch on her, and had then proceeded to kill Driver Nephi, Violet, and even the de-facto leader of the Fiends, Motor-Runner, with only a few bullet wounds that were easily repaired with stimpacks.

In fact, a lot of the independent people of Freeside were the sort to grumble about her rule. Of course, she didn't really put too much stock into their dislike. They were the sort to hate _any_ ruler that claimed Westside as their own. As such, she had tried to handle them with long tongs, making sure they were allowed to continue as they had before she had consolidated her rule.

Not that she didn't do that that with everyone else in the confederacy. She made it a point to not interfere with her independent subjects in general, but she did give money and offer advice on where to put it, primarily on increasing trade, industry, and defense of towns. With Westside, she had been very careful to only give the money, saying nothing on where to put it. Fortunately, they were already quite self sufficient, and had focused on increasing that sufficiency.

The real big issue had been the Securitrons. Westside had flat out refused to allow any Securitrons into the town, and had only even let her leave two of them outside each of the gates. They were only allowed when she pointed out how it could reduce their militia's guard duties on the gates themselves. Ever since, the entire town had been sort of grumbley with her. Nothing near the rebelliousness of the FFR, but still something to be concerned about.

"I don't want her for _that_, I just need to ask her something,"

"Oh? And what would that be, _my lady_?"

"She was a contact for a... friend, of mine and I need to find him,"

"How about you pay full price and you get the full time?"

"Look, I just-"

"Don't care. You either pay full price, and I don't care _what_ you do with her, or you leave the building," Sarah said as she folded her burnt arms across her chest and leaned back on her heels.

Nicole cursed under her breathe before tossing the prepared sack of bottle caps at the pimp. She had expected Sarah to be like this, and was mostly just surprised that the price hadn't conveniently been raised three fold. Sarah scowled at her before accepting the bag and waving the Queen into the rooms behind her. After skirting around the angry woman, Nicole strode around up the stairs to Sweeties room and found the whore laying on her bed reading a magazine. Her gaze snapped up to Nicole and a grin found her mouth as she jumped up from the bed, magazine falling akimbo onto the ground.

Nicole held out a hand to keep the whore from leaping upon her, before a shy smile stuck to her face.

"I'm just here to talk, Susan, not for er, business," Sweetie's face descended and Nicole felt a little bad for the whore. It couldn't be very often that royalty stomped in to her room, and it was probably depressing to not get to sleep with said royalty when it arrived in her place of business when that business _was_ to sleep with anyone who walked in the door.

"How do you know my name? I haven't gone by Susan Dubois for years now," asked the downtrodden whore.

"Heard it from a Follower, they said that you might have some information for me, and to be honest, I'm basically out of options," she said plaintively to the whore, who motioned her hand for Nicole to continue, "I'm looking for Benny of the chairmen." the whore's eyes lit up at that, "I was told you were a contact of his a while back," Nicole said seeing the recognition in the whore's eyes.

"I, I was, a while ago. I told him about the situation in Westside, he gave me some good caps. Why do you want to know about him?" she asked with an almost desperate look on her face.

"I just want to find him, he ran off without saying goodbye," said the Courier with a disarming grin. It didn't appear to relieve Sweetie, who looked like she was about to cry.

"I knew he had been with other girls, but I thought...I thought that, he really cared. When did he knock you up?" Nicole could see tears lines streaking down the girl's face and she dropped her pretense of humor. She could tell that the whore had slept with the ex-head of the Chairmen, but it was looking more and more like the whore had actually fallen in love with him.

"Well, I'm not pregnant-" Wait a minute..."Wait, you're pregnant!" gasped the Courier, bringing her eyes down to the stomach of the girl before her, and sure enough, a barely noticeable bulge could be seen there.

"Yeah," whimpered Sweetie, sniffling through her sobs, "it happened when he went by a few months ago,"

"Um, no offense, but you _are_ a whore, how do you know that the baby is his?" asked Nicole. This was getting awkward. She had apparently stumbled into some sort of love triangle (minus her loving anyone in it), and had wrecked the poor girl's whole day. Now she needed to calm her down before she went into hysterics, and _then_ get back to her question.

"I-It was a slow week, and h-h-he was the only man to come in," she sobbed again for a moment before holding the tears back in, "Don't tell Sarah, please. I will be out on the street within days if she finds out," Sweetie begged.

"Whoa, I'm not telling her, but the, um, kid will tell her soon enough," she glanced pointedly at Sweetie's belly. The distraught whore nodded her had shakily.

"I am trying to find Benny right now, and he will be able to help you if I can find him. I'll _make_ him help you if it really is his," she growled. She had hated the idea of a child being separated from its parents, either of its parents, ever since her family was killed on their ranch in California by some of the other rich land barons in the area. The only reason she was even still alive had been her own innate talents in the all areas of violence as she had killed the man that had raped her and the entire troop of mercenaries that had killed her family. Events like that usually led to bad things, and she had almost become a psychopathic killer for a while after that.

Her family had known what she was from a young age and had, she thought, succeeded in teaching her right from wrong quite well. She had always been upset with her own failings to innately understand such things, but had proceeded with a set of ironclad rules that her family had developed for her.

Until the night the first men she had ever killed had murdered her entire family in front of her, and raped her twelve year old body even as she had been covered in the blood of her mother. That night had been when she nearly went mad. After burying the dead corpses of her family, she had kneeled in the dirt and just stared at the five graves before her without a single sob. Eventually, some traders had come by the next afternoon, and had seen the state of her body and brought her to the nearest Follower's outpost.

After a few days, she had regained her senses. Eventually, she had snuck out of the outpost and gone back home, taking everything she could and starting out on her life, hunting and scavenging in the wastes. After four years of aimless wandering, she joined the Mojave express as a Courier, and had held that job for another six and a half years before being caught by Benny and summarily 'executed' on top of cemetery hill in Goodsprings. She had no memory of how he actually caught her, her last memory before waking up to see her hands bound in front of her in the orange light of a fire had been walking down the highway towards Sloan, but she knew that it had been the second time her life had changed. After waking back up on the 17th of October, she had chased down rumors of her 'murderer' all the way until she was contacted by House, setting in place the events that would climax in the defeat of the Legion and her establishment of the confederacy five months after waking up.

Her own experiences in the wasteland had been far from idle; she had not known a moment of rest until after the Legion was defeated, and the NCR's army was back at the Mojave Outpost, hiding in the shadow of their monument, since the day her family was killed.

It had now been two months since the defeat of the Legion, and still she was seeing divided families, even if they were not even known to exist.

"T-t-thank you, my lady. I-I just wish that he hadn't been with someone else,"

"Well obviously you think that, and I didn't know he was seeing anyone, um, whore or not," said Nicole trying to let a slice of humor back into her voice as she took the arm of the poor girl in front of her who took the opportunity to throw herself into her arms, fortunately in a sobbing hug, and not a return to business.

"Besides," she said as she patted Sweetie's back, "It was really more of an accident than anything else,"

After crying her eyes out a little more, Sweetie stood back and nodded before suddenly looking at the Queen sideways.  
>"But you wanted to know where he went I'm sure, right?" she asked her.<p>

"Yeah, I'm after him to, well, believe it or not, offer him a position in my government," Sweetie looked surprised by that, "I know! He tries to kill me at least once, and I offer him a job in government! Wait, isn't that sort of normal? Put all the snakes and jerks in government? 'Cause that's what has been happening for the past several thousand years,"

"But you're are not either of those things, you have been very good to the Mojave," said the girl in an obvious, if earnest, attempt to flatter her.

"Don't bother with the butter, I really don't need it," she said with a grin, before motioning the girl to continue.

"He came by just after Caesar was assassinated, that's when he and I, um, you know," she said, vaguely gesturing towards her belly, "When he left, I asked him where he was going, and he said he wanted to try heading north to go around the Divide and Big Empty, and head up to Oregon. I think he just wanted to leave the Mojave, like he had nothing left here," she said, looking distressed again and putting her hands upon the slight bulge in her waistline. It saddened Nicole a little to see the girl so distraught, but her objective was finding Benny first. Then she could let him deal with all of the internal politics of the Confederacy, or at least manage the Strip. The King could take care of Freeside, and Westside had a fairly tightly run system in place, and had little need of interference. None of the other areas in the confederacy really had any issues compared to the actual city. The towns were left alone, and the conjoined factions of the region were already competent in surviving and thriving.

"So he went Northwest? Did he say anything about going to Jacobstown on the way?"

"No, I think he just wanted to leave honestly, he was probably afraid you or the Legion might hunt him down. Which is what you _are_ doing," Sweetie said looking at the heavy rifle slung over the Courier's shoulder and the complacent ghoul and robot milling about out in the hallway behind the Queen.

"Yes, but if I let him go the last two times I saw him, why would he expect me to kill him this time?" Nicole sighed as she pressed her fingers against her forehead. "I suppose it doesn't matter. The idiot is running away and I need to hunt him down. Again. _Again_," she sighed again before bidding the pregnant whore farewell.

"So, where to now, Boss?" asked Raul after they left the crumbling building.

"Apparently, we are on an odyssey to the north west, Raul. Might as well get started now,"

"How do you even know you are going to find him, Boss? I mean, he has been gone for what? Three months now? He could be almost anywhere,"

"You might think that, but you don't know Benny. He is far more liable to be set up as the petty dictator of the next village we come across. He is really more of a homebody than anything. Ever since the Chairmen came to the Strip, they and the other Families have really lost their tribal origins. If any of them could survive for a week in the wastes alone, I would be more than slightly surprised," she said while she walked to the western entrance to the community.

"He still might have gone further, I never went far from Mexico City until after the Great War, yet here I am, fifteen hundred miles away, not counting my time at the Petro-Chico station or Tucson or anywhere else,"

"What's your point, Raul?" she asked irritably as she pushed past the gate and gave the area around the gate a cursory inspection before she started to walk through the many barricades that the Westsiders had established over the years.

"Well, far be it from me, your poor creaking bones mechanic, to point out the obvious. Oh well, you won't admit it. He might be dead or so far gone that you will never catch him, Boss,"

"I know, but I need to _try_ to find him. I can't deal with the Families as they are now, shocked and in awe of me. What happens when they forget who saved them from the Legion and NCR? What happens when they forget that at least I'm not Not-at-Home? Benny is much better at talking with them, and I can let him manage the Strip itself, while Arcade can fix the economy and educational systems, and I can protect the whole region. We each work on the things we understand," she shook her head as she moved on, Raul shambling on a few feet behind, and ED-E scanned the area for nasty creatures with its sensors.

"Why _are_ you so desperate, Boss? You don't _love_ him or anything do you?" she snorted at that and nearly tripped in a pothole as she started to guffaw a little before reigning in her laughter. With most people, the fact that she had slept with Benny once,_ once_, automatically made them assume she was only after him to get him in bed again. Which was of course ridiculous. That whole routine he went through was an almost complete sham. He hadn't even been all that great in bed, certainty not good enough for her to invite him to another one, and despite his frequently irritating nature he did have skills when it came to being a manager. She simply wanted him to keep the Families from each others throats and to help attract more people to throw all of their hard earned money into her coffers. Preferably people from the NCR, not her own citizens.

But with Raul, she could tell he was joking. Mostly because he was always joking in one way or another. She doubted he had always been the way he was now, it was most likely a reaction to surviving as long as he had and experiencing what he had. After losing his entire family, he either would descend into a pit of depression or persevere and keep going.

"Love doesn't factor in, Raul," she said once she had stopped laughing. "No, it really is to have him run the Strip, nothing more, nothing less,"

"Do you actually trust him, Boss?"

"Do I trust the man that shot me in the cranial cap? Um, no. Not at all. but I know what he is good for-"

"I should say so,"

"-and I know where I could use him. I need all the help I can possibly get right now Raul, and even if I don't trust him, I know he won't do anything to hurt Vegas. Killing me would mean killing his legacy, and any legitimacy to the control of the confederacy, followed by a brief period of anarchy and a sudden seizure of the whole region by the NCR. Yes Man also won't answer to him and _will_ fry him if he tries to mess around with the 38's programming or network," she said with a shrug. "He also knows what happened the last time he thought messing with me would be a good idea, although he didn't even know who I was at the time,"

"Very true, Boss. I think trying to kill you has become the favorite pass-time of the recently deceased around here,"

_(Author's note: I really felt I needed to point out some of her past again, since I didn't make it very clear earlier on in the story. I also realize that each of these chapters is basically focused on a single event, and then goes to the next chapter and another event. I'm really sorry about that, and the quality of the writing in general, but this is one of my first stories, and I am a _far_ better reader than I am a writer._

_Also, I am sorry that Nicole is more than slightly Mary-Sue ish. I'm (as I have said before) terrible at social anything, and any situation where the Courier/Lone Wanderer/Chosen One/Vault Dweller _isn't_ ungodly good at killing things needs to have a strong social aspect. I also apologize for the fairly generic past of Nicole, but again, I don't really know much of how people work. The point of this story is to focus on the big picture stuff that happened to the Mojave after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, not so much on character progression._

_Again, I have zero experience with romance in any way shape and form, so if anything even slightly related to that sort of thing seems awkward at all, just know that it is my fault entirely, and I really wish I could do those parts better. Sorry about that._

_Yes I say 'I'm sorry' and apologize a lot, I can't help it._

_I am still waiting to hear from some potential Beta's for this story, but until I do this is still an unsupervised and unrestrained story that comes from the odd depths of my deranged imagination. If anyone wants to Beta this, please contact me through a review or a PM. I check the site for reviews and messages every few hours (although the internet hates me right now), so I will get back fairly quickly under most circumstances, I just never get responded back to when somebody offers (wow, that was awkward sounding)._

_In other news, college finals are coming up, but I felt I had to write another chapter before I hit them. After that though, I am probably going to be a slave for all of winter break, and I am thus unsure of whether not I will be able to do as much of this as I hoped to over vacation. So, again, spaces between updates may be going back up again. Hopefully though, the first part to this story will be over in another few chapters and I can proceed to the second part, which won't take more than a chapter or two._

_Assuming anyone cares)._


	9. Unexpected

_(Author's note: Hello again, sorry about the wait, got stuck halfway through this chapter, and then got Star Wars the Old Republic, so I haven't been writing much. And I haven't even gotten to Skyrim yet! Yep, I'm doomed. Besides that, college is starting again, so i have to worry about that now too. Sigh..._

_Review please; good, bad, praise, declarations of eternal hatred, typos, guesses as to where this is all going, et cetera, et cetera)._

Unexpected

The long, dusty road that went north of Vegas was largely uninhabited. After the handful of abandoned farms and the turnoff that led through the mountains to Jacobstown, there was almost nothing for miles on end, except for more cracked road and flat, wide open, desert.

After they had gone a few miles down the road, a gaping crater suddenly appeared in the ground that opened before their feet. It was a bit smaller than the crater at the summit of Black Mountain, but the radiation was much more intense, as indicated by Nicole's wildly beeping Geiger counter that was built into her Pip-Boy. A small sign warned of leftover radiation from the bomb, twisted and gnarled from age. Although the radiation would affect neither of her companions in the slightest, she felt that it was far better to simply circle around it and continue on their way.

As they walked, they talked about inconsequential things; ranging from Raul's work in the basements of the Lucky 38, to political and economic ideas, of which Raul was a wealth of knowledge, considering his extremely long life and first hand experience with the world before the Great War. While he had been young when the bombs first fell, he had not been an idiot, and had picked up a working knowledge of the history of local governments and how they worked or lack thereof.

At other times, they would simply stride along the road, glancing back and forth across the wastes on the lookout for raiders or creatures, and listening to the radio, hoping to pick up a still working station that played more than Radio New Vegas. The endlessly repeating A.I. had long sense driven both of them half mad, and was only tolerated so that Nicole could hear the news. She had tried to hack the network, but even Yes Man could not succeed. Apparently House had wanted to torture her by locking her out of the radio network. She honestly had no idea how the radio continuously updated the news, or how the A.I was able to speak so smoothly, without any jumps or skips between the words, or even in change in inflection in its voice. It was almost like someone was still speaking though it, not simply going though a series of prerecorded voice overs.

If only she could find a decent music cache leftover in some abandoned building! Maybe Veronica would find something on her trip to the east. Veronica had always searched for a dress, and failed to find one until Nicole had discovered the Sierra Madre, and had been beside herself to receive the almost pristine article from the haunted Casino.

Considering that one only found things that one wasn't looking for, perhaps Veronica would find some sort of music collection that had _nothing_ to do with any sort of country or western rubbish that she had been forced to listen to since her home was destroyed. Where had the rock gone?

She was answered, albeit in a sort of roundabout way, when a bunch of primitive tribals literally jumped out of the ground and hurled rocks at the small group. The objects bounced off of her heavily upgraded stealth armor, and she had to consciously prevent the suit's artificial intelligence from injecting her with the highly addictive pain killing drug of Med-X, (which it offered whenever anything more powerful than a cosmic ray hit the suit) and activate the stealth systems, rendering her invisible, but for a slight shimmering. Raul, who had also received one of the stealth suits, fortunately for him without the trigger happy Med-X injector, also activated the invisible feature of the suit.

They both rolled of the highway, and began to fire at the handful of surprised tribals, Raul with his ancient, but effective .44 magnum and Nicole with her overpowered Anti-Material rifle. At the same time, ED-E, who was not invisible, began to weave back and forth in the air, dodging the rocks and occasional spear that the tribals threw at him as the only enemy in sight. It began firing with its laser mounted underneath its main chassis, picking off a few more of their attackers.

The tribals had no sense of tactics, nor retreat, and after a few moments of being shot simply charged the heavily armed group waving a variety of primitive weapons about. Seeing only the small eyebot, they focused all of their attacks on it, leaving the human and ghoul to shoot at the group.

After about forty or so seconds of adrenaline and sweat, the whole group of tribals were dead or dying on the ground around them, and they were completely unharmed. After checking the bodies and easing the passing of the handful that were still alive, they continued on. None of the tribals had had any distinguishing markings, other than a decided lack of clothing, as all of them wearing nothing but a small loincloth about their waists. Not that that was all that unusual. A lot of Tribals were still extremely primitive, and few tribes reached any sort of modular unity.

By the time it had grown dark, they had stumbled upon an old farm that was still somewhat capable of being shelter. A series of straight lines around the area indicated former irrigation, and a small barn was set a hundred or so feet away from the farmhouse. In the farmyard itself, a decrepit tractor was completely rusted through, and a few more items that had obviously been there for some time, revealed that the farm was most likely abandoned, whether from the Great War or more recently, they could not tell. Several years in any case.

The farm building itself was two stories and square, with each side being perhaps fifty feet long. The roof had completely collapsed into the upper story, and several of the upper walls were falling apart, but the lower level appeared to be more or less stable. There were no indications of anyone living there from the outside, so they broke the sad excuse for a lock on the front door and checked through the house. The house consisted of a small living room, kitchen and dining room, a bathroom, and a master bedroom. Some stairs led to the second floor, weathered as they were. The second floor was a small maze of collapsing walls and debris, and contained no useful items, whereas the kitchen had a few packs of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes and Cram. Setting about on making camp for the night in the ruined house, Nicole grabbed one of the fission batteries in ED-E's storage bay, and was able to jumpstart the stove. Raul checked the house for valuables and working equipment and found nothing.

While Raul, who was by far the better cook of the two, set about making some dinner from the scavenged food and the provisions they had brought along, Nicole went outside and searched the perimeter of the farm, finding a handful of long dead brahmin, as well as a barely intelligible note on a post by the mailbox that might have said, 'Gone to Vegas!'.

Finding nothing else, Nicole told her eyebot to continue to patrol the farmyard, and went inside, setting a much improved lock on both doors into the house.

Raul finished cooking, and they sat on the collapsed coach and ate the age-old cram that was cooked with a few banana yucca fruits, finishing up with some of the snack cakes.

"So Boss, where do you think Benny is?' asked Raul after he tossed one of the snack cake wrappers into a garbage can in the corner of the kitchen.

Nicole continued chewing her last cake before giving her ghoul companion a desultory shrug and swallowing the remains.

"No idea then?" asked Raul followed by an absent-minded shrug from the queen. "So, we're just going to keep walking until we find him then?" she nodded. Raul raised what was left of his eyebrow and sighed. "You don't want to talk about it do you, Boss?"

"Not really, Raul. I still haven't even figured out why I'm doing this, especially when I could be back home organizing Freeside or taking down the old highway or even just waiting to hear back from Veronica about the eastern Brotherhood. Maybe I'm just lazy," she muttered the last part to herself, before leaving the room to go collapse on the bed in the last surviving bedroom. Raul had already told her that he was taking the couch, and had given her a look that said, queen or not, she wasn't going to get anywhere arguing about it.

For the time being, he propped his old legs up on the chair she had vacated, and began drinking an old bottle of whiskey that he had found in the fridge. Not that the fridge had kept it cold, but it was at least still sealed in the bottle.

He hadn't really done too badly for an old, broken down vaquero. He was the chief mechanic for a whole nation, and not a petty warlord's "nation" at that. Instead of an old gas station castle, or maybe a hotel keep, he was in charge of keeping the entire city of New Vegas running. Well, other people did stuff too, but he was the one technically in charge of repairs to anything mechanical or electrical. He had spent the first few months of the life of the confederacy crawling around in the Lucky 38 basement and the old sewers, trying to fix the power routing issue that the city was having. Enough power was getting through to the city, but a fair amount of it was being diverted to who knows what.

Most likely, the ancient electrical wires running above and beneath the city were simply too worn down to sustain a decent electrical output, and were just drawing more power to meet the cities needs. That's what it looked like at least, and there wasn't much he could do about it. He was good at fixing things, but he didn't have the supplies to repair the miles upon miles of wiring that ran beneath the city.

Besides that, he had been trying to get the sewage systems to work better, and that meant getting all of the people living in them out, something that wasn't easy for a ghoul. When they weren't shooting at him, they were laughing at him and not giving him a word in edgewise. Which, when he just gave up and activated the entire system, not just the bits that were keeping the casino's toilets running, would leave them swimming in feces.

At least he would have tried.

Other than that, he was acting as the manual maintenance for Yes Man and keeping the power in the Lucky 38's reactor going. Yes Man and the handful of repair 'bots were capable of keeping the thing going on a daily basis, but weren't very helpful with fully repairing things, and everyone would be very happy to avoid a nuclear meltdown that would make the city uninhabitable. Besides, the Mr. Handys couldn't fit into a lot of the places that someone needed to crawl around in, and even an old Ghoul with wobbly knees was better than nothing.

So, he was kept crawling around the basements, by his robot overlord.

He chuckled to himself at the thought, taking another swig from his whiskey and feeling the liquid burn down his throat. "Overlord" was the antonym of Yes Man in every way, shape, and form. The robot spent his entire existence keeping the power running, controlling the Securitrons at Nicole's bidding, and running calculations of potential threat risks. Actually, except for his lack of free will, he _was_ a robot overlord. If he hadn't been constrained by his programming and Nicole's specific instructions, he would probably have killed them all by now.

He snorted at himself in amusement before leaning back in his chair, which protested as he did so, and finished off the last of his whiskey. At least Nicole knew that she had to be careful with Yes Man, because helpful or not, he could still easily 'misinterpret' one of her commands and kill everyone in sight. He _seemed_ happy about what was going on, but it was hard to tell, because he was _always_ happy. Except on a few occasions, such as when Nicole told him that the Brotherhood had joined the confederacy. Yes Man had thought that they would take him apart, but they had been more then contented to receive most of House's and Big MT's technical resources.

He got up from his seat and set the empty bottle on the table before heading off to relive himself before he went to couch.

When he came back inside, he stopped to check in on Nicole and see if she was still awake. Instead of a lump in the mattress, he saw a series of moth-eaten blankets and pillows strewn throughout the room, and no Courier.

"Where'd she go?" he asked out loud, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. He went through the house and checked all of the rooms. Starting to feel alarm, he ran outside and croaked her name as loud as he could. Seeing and hearing nothing, he sent out a call for her eyebot. He began to search for any signs of her, knowing that the hovering eyebot would leave no trace. Eventually, he found the poor robot laying on its side and twitching violently behind the remnants of the tractor, beeping angrily.

He muttered a curse and checked over the robot, seeing that somehow, someone had managed to yank its hover control module and forcing the robot to try to move with only a full burst of power.

"Settle down _muchacho_," Raul said soothingly to the machine, searching for the disabled wire in the chassis. "Its times like this that I wish you could talk... Ah ha! There you go!" he said as the robot, guidance systems restored, rapidly shot straight up into the air and angrily took off to the north, obviously following the path Nicole had been taken upon.

Muttering something unintelligible about old, creaky bones, Raul started jogging after the eyebot.

(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)

Why was she laying in the dirt? That bed, despite its age, had been almost sinfully comfortable, and she had been asleep within moments of collapsing onto it. How did she go from a bed to the cold desert dirt? Had Raul thrown her out the window? That wasn't very likely, he had been quite content to take the couch, never expressing any desire for the bed whatsoever. Besides, he would have woken her up with complaints about his back hurting him, or his shins, or his sides, or...

Abandoning her random thoughts she tried to move, and found that her muscles all felt like jelly. Not comprehending why this might be in her befuddled state, she gave a mental shrug and let that warm feeling of sleep take her over once again.

(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)

A voice growled something unintelligible in her ear, waking her up once again. Forcing her protesting and weak eye muscles to obey her commands, she opened them, only to find herself at the mercy of the cruel sun. Gasping and blinking repeatedly, she saw colors explode across her vision. She tried to move her hands to cover her eyes from the glare, but felt a resistance that she had not felt for many months, since the day her great adventure began in fact.

Her arms were tied up.

Grumbling a protest at the indignation of- apparently- being captured once again, and trying to quell the growing sense of terror building up deep in her belly that shouted at her _'Not again! No, no, no! Never again! Not this, not this!'_ she shoved the terrified, pleading voice within her into a small corner of her mind and bricked it up, reducing the screams to a muffled whisper that she could ignore.

As near as she could tell, she had fallen asleep and someone had shot her with a dart of some kind. Drugs were really the only explanation for her earlier loopy state and her lack of control over her muscles. She could move a little, but not much.

The voice rasped something into her ear again, but despite her gradual waking process, she still couldn't understand it. Was it in another language? Maybe those tribals they had killed had had friends that had hunted them down. Then why would they- NO! she shouted to herself, throwing more bricks at the inner voice that had almost broken through. That would _never_ happen again.

Steeling herself, she opened her eyes again, grimacing as the light intruded into her eyes. At first all she saw were colors, a blue mixed with a vague sort of white above, and in her peripheral vision, a burning pure white that caused her abused eyes even more pain. Apparently, she was laying on her back in the middle of the desert. Having not paid any attention to her body after she had tried to move her arms, she had given it no thought and had not felt the hot ground pressing up against her. She felt it now, and winced as the burning sensation covered her whole body.

She shifted her adjusting eyes to each side and saw a man wearing clothes identical to the tribals that had tried to kill her and Raul on the first, and apparently last, day of their trip. He was staring at her with big, wide, innocent eyes. For an absurd instant, she thought of how Dr. Dala of Big MT would have cooed to her "Teddy Bear" before the odd thought past and left her staring into a pair of deep blue pools that reminded her of the Great Western Ocean, that was apparently called the Pacific, whatever that meant.

He didn't appear to be doing anything, just staring at her. He looked quite young, probably only sixteen or so, and almost emaciated he was so skinny. Not that that was unusual in the wastes, where people struggled to simply stay alive. He didn't have any sort of lust in his eyes, like most men did when they looked at her like that, he was just looking at her like she was some new and interesting thing that he was afraid to touch.

Suddenly, she felt an arm grip her head and flip her forward onto her stomach, knocking the wind out of her and, it felt like, breaking her nose. She muttered a few choice curses as she felt the pain flood into her system, along with anger. She was going to _kill_ whoever did that.

She felt a bare foot collide with her ribs, the force of which flipped her over onto her back again. Helplessly she tried to roll away from whoever was tormenting her, when hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her upright. She limped quickly away, and spun around as fast as her lack of balance would allow and faced her torturer.

This man, for it was a different one then the youth that had been staring at her, was _huge_. He was almost as tall as a fully upright super mutant, and his face was a close analogue to one. He might even be one for all she knew, the only difference was his skin color, which was almost as white as a sheet. Was it some sort of tribal war paint, or was he the first ever albino super mutant? She supposed it didn't matter, all that mattered was that he could break her in half whenever he wanted.

She back peddled away from him a little before her back smashed into another person. This one grabbed her, flipped her through the air and slung her still weak body over his shoulder, with her head dangling next to his lower back. He held her legs in one arm, and following a course of unintelligible speech from her carrier and the others in the group, it sounded like there was only six or so, he started plodding along in a steady jog.

She quickly hated the man even more so then the giant, as he had her just so that whenever he moved forward, she would crush her broken nose against his back, making the journey a torment and soon blocking her vision with her own blood that she could feel polluting her hair, which she just realized had been unbound and hung below her down to the man buttocks. Trying to ignore the pain, she concentrated first on the absurd picture she probably made for the tribals, and, realizing it was just making her madder, she moved to trying to figure out how she was supposed to get out of this situation.

Negotiating was out, they didn't appear to speak any sort of language she could recognize, and hadn't even addressed her as far as she could tell. After that, she mentally moved to the possibility of escape when they set her down. After running through numerous possibilities, she realized that it didn't matter what she _thought_ they would do, it only would matter when they actually set her down and she was able to try to move again. Fighting them wouldn't work. Despite her skills, she had never really learned much unarmed combat. Her victory over Francis at the Fort had been as much luck as anger, and he was clearly even less trained then she was. Tribals usually made it a practice to be able to kill with anything they could get their hands on, and lacking that, their teeth, nails, and fists could substitute. If she could get so much as a knife, her chances of success would shoot up, but until then, fighting was also out.

Waiting for rescue wasn't very appealing. Only Raul and ED-E were in range of her, and they could be dead back at that farm house for all she knew. Besides, she had seen no road during her brief moments of semi-freedom. Clearly, the tribals were taking her somewhere else off the main road, which reduced her chance of being saved even more. Therefore, even if they were alive and searching for her, the chances were excellent that they would never find her. She could almost feel Raul's terror. This same thing had happened to him before, and it hadn't gone well. Even with his tracking skills, that girl had died before he could get there.

At least he would kill all of these tribals for revenge. Not that it would mean all that much to her if she was gang raped and dead, but it was something to cling to, and cling to it she did.

Hours of ignoring pain later, she found herself roughly grabbed by the group of men- for she had seen through the journey in between the blood that the group consisted of seven men- and lifted onto a flat, solid surface. A rock maybe? Was this where they ritually sacrificed her or something? Great.

The blood had sealed her eyes off long ago, and she could feel it matted across her face, but they still put a blindfold of some sort around her head. Then hands forced her to stand up. One man got behind her and started pushing her arms, directing her to start walking.

After another half hour of stubbed toes and mumbled curses, the pressure on her back lessened, and she felt a hand press down on her skull. She tried to sit down, but was arrested by a slap to her face and another stream of unintelligible words from the mouth of the giant, who was apparently the groups leader.

Deciding that the ritual sacrifice would occur _now_ and wondering why they hadn't just finished her off before- and quickly crushing her wandering thoughts before she could think of why seven men might want her alive- she kneeled down as best as she could. Strong arms wrapped around her skull and forced her neck back. She shuddered and waited for the blade to cut her throat, but instead felt the blindfold being torn off and some cold metal being clasped around her throat. Next, a velvety material was thrown over her shoulders and tied roughly to the thin metal band around her throat. The cloth, for that appeared to be what it was by the feel of it, was wrapped back around her waist, leaving her upper body exposed save for the remnants of her under shirt that she had been wearing when she fell asleep.

She was made to stand back up, and the cloth was encircled around her legs. Deciding that whatever it was probably some bizarre cloths intended for the ritual she was about to participate in. Probably, they would cut open her chest and rip her still beating heart out.

With these morbid thoughts in mind, she was pushed forward into walking again. And again, she smacked her foot against a rock. She was quite certain she had broken a toe that time, and hopped forward a few steps before overcoming the pain and continuing to blindly limp forward. Eventually, she was brought to a stop again, and she felt a wet cloth rub at her face, causing her nose to begin bleeding again, but clearing up the mask of dried blood that concealed her sight.

What she saw amazed her. She was standing in the ruins of a pre-war town that had been taken over as a place of residence of the tribals. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were clustered on each side of a crumbling road that appeared to serve as the main avenue for the village. Most of the houses were demolished, but a few remained relatively untouched or capable of being shelter. Pre-war tarps and animal skins covered gaps in the holes in the roofs and between buildings. Makeshift tents were set up in places with no surviving architecture. Great fires lit up the eyes of the people, as she realized that it was again night. the fires extended in a meticulous pattern down the sides of the road and stretched for several hundred yards before ending at a great pavilion of sorts.

The gruff hand of one of her captors forced her forward, and she began to walk. As she walked, she saw that all of the people around her were dressed as her captors were, with simple loincloths. The woman as well as the men were bare breasted, and seemed unashamed, which wasn't atypical of tribal villages. Many simply saw no reason to wear extra cloths to "dignify themselves", and saw away with extra raiment.

It was after this brief moment of detachment, she realized that all of them, every single one, was staring at her.

Having no recourse but to keep walking, she did, and soon heard the sounds of hundreds of bare feet slapping the pavement behind her as she walked towards the grand pavilion at the end of the road.

When she finally arrived, one of her captors moved a Deathclaw skin aside and another pushed her through the opening. That was when all of them but the man who had been carrying her, the giant that had thrown her about the desert, and the youth that _never stopped staring at her_, left the group and took up stations outside of the flap. She was forced to walk through the pavilion, seeing more of the tribals that stared at her with the same interest as those outside, these simply wore more clothes.

When she reached another flap, she was made to stop. Apparently this was the leader's part of the tent, as it had two guards, each wearing of all things, woman's formal wear that would not have been out of place in the Ultra-Luxe. Had the men wearing it been female. Aside from the dresses, they each carried an assortment of weapons, and glared at her with a sort of professional distrust and distaste.

After her captors spoke to the guards in their odd language that she still made no sense of, one of the guards opened the flap. Her captors pushed her through the flap one last time before turning to leave the pavilion. Feeling her terror rise up again, she crushed it and stumbled forward into the room. She looked around. It was probably the most anachronistic thing she could have seen. Instead of the trophies of kills or victories she had expected, she saw an assortment of furniture that would not have looked out of place in one of the Strip hotels, including a king sized bed. The room was lit by a few lights that appeared to be powered by the generator in the corner of the room, and even a computer terminal sitting on a desk to her right.

Suddenly a vice was gripping her and she felt herself being crushed against a mans chest.

She tried to squirm away, but could not, the tight tope wrapped around her wrists had not been undone, and she still didn't have full control of her body from the drugs that had gone through her system. Giving up on the struggle for the moment, she tried to see the mans features and see what he was doing.

That was when he flipped her around, locked his lips onto hers for a moment before abandoning her lips to kiss her forehead and let loose a contented sigh.

"Ah, pussycat, you have no _idea_ how much I missed you!" said Benny.

_(Author's note: Bet you didn't see that coming, huh! No, that was probably as obvious as your average white elephant in a room being lit up by fire works. Keep in mind that the fireworks illuminating the elephant are _inside._ Oh well, I never have said that I was all that good as suspense or characterization._

_Yes, I hate the music in Fallout. I like Rock and Metal. Although I admit that it is at least_ music_, unlike most of that other nonsense that people listen to now. Oh well, I won't convince them of their rapture with awful things. Ugh._

_I won't be specific because I don't want to be sued._

_Oh look! I went on a tangent! When has that _never_ happened?_

_Congradulations to whoever visited this story between the hours of 10PM and 12AM (EST) on January 19, 2012. You are the 3000 hit to this story, and your prize is... nothing!_

_Also, I'm sorry if people got messages about this on story alert. I accidentally posted it earlier then I wanted to, sorry._

_So yeah, review if you would like, say what you liked, didn't like, mention typos or misplaced grammar, guess what will happen next (honestly, I get some ideas from reviews sometimes) ask questions about things that don't make sense and I will clarify them as soon as I can in the next chapter. Seriously, I want people to like this, and I don't know until they tell me)._


	10. And Thanks for all of the Spears

_(Author's note: Right, sorry about the ungodly long wait. I got stumped, thought I'd set it aside for a week to cool off a bit, and then... well, I kept pulling it out to go over it again, but it just never... felt right I guess. So most of this chapter was actually written six months ago. I also am kind of upset with how far from my original plan I have gone, so I am going to go back right on it and sneak into the houses of whoever doesn't like it and cut their throats._

_Er... I mean I will respect their opinions and all that nonsense._

_...I hope everyone realizes that was a joke..._

_I also apologize in advance for the horrible characterization of Benny. I just can't seem to get the voice right at all, even more so then usual. And I never played poker all that much, so most of the phrases they say about it go right over my head. Oh well, this story is not about Benny. Hard to believe at this point I know)._

**And Thanks for all of the Spears...**

Here he was. Apparently, Benny had only fled for two days after going around New Vegas before settling down. Huh. Why that surprised her, she did not know. Considering Benny's previous life as an affluent casino owner, returning to a sedentary life didn't seem that out of character. Nor did the fact that one of his hands had slipped down her back to cup one cheek of her butt.

"Alright Benny," she said recovering her composure, even in her still somewhat addled state, "First of all, get your hands off of me," she growled at him. He grinned a little and backed up a few feet and held his hands up before him in a gesture of submission.

"Aw, why do you have to be like that baby? Don't you know I just missed you doll?" his insufferably confident grin was still plastered onto his face, just like she remembered it.

"I don't really care Benny," she said, "I want to know what you are doing out here, and how you got to be chief of a pile of people who don't speak a word of English,"

"But that's not important pussycat! What's happened to Vegas? Is she swinging baby?"

"For the last time Benny, what is swinging supposed to mean? Does it mean 'is it going well', does it mean 'are there orgies in the streets', or should I just take it literally and have it mean swinging from the nearest street lamp?" this wasn't how the conversation was supposed to be going. She was supposed to find him and them have him come back with her, not debate his idiosyncrasies and affected mannerisms.

He laughed at her, just like he had every other time she had asked him that. "It doesn't matter doll. How is it going I suppose would be best. I haven't heard anything since I have been up here," he gestured towards some of the ornate furniture, and she limped over to the nearest chair and settled into it. Upon taking her weight off of her legs, they suddenly screamed in torment at her. If she could walk again within the next three days it would be a miracle.

"Alright Benny, I'll bite. But first, I came here to find you, and I found you after a bunch of your thugs whisked me out of my room. I need to know what happened to Raul and my robot, and I need to know how you came to be in charge. And why you haven't untied my wrists," she added in an afterthought, presenting her tied together arms to him.

"Oh, right sorry baby doll, I'll just get that," he said, pulling a switchblade from his pant leg pocket. She realized at that moment that he was actually not wearing his trademark checkered suit, instead, he wore a crudely made brahmin skin shirt, and some gecko-hide leggings. He approached her again, and quickly cut the rope binding her hands together. It hadn't been abnormally tight, but she still felt relief as the blood flowed back into her hands and wrists without restraint.

"First off, near as I can tell anyway, Big Guy never actually killed Raul, and they couldn't destroy your crazy eyebot, so they just left with you," she sighed in relief. ED-E was practically indestructible, and Raul could repair him from any nearby scrap if he had too.

"And I guess I'll tell you what happened since you rescued me from old Baldie's tent, shall I? Right, well I got out of there as soon as I could, went around Lake Mead and the Boomers territory, came across Big Guy, the same one that captured you. He dragged me back here, but I was able to take over. Then, two months later, you show up and here we are," he said quickly, obviously eager to hear news of the city he loved.

"Not so fast, how did you go from being a prisoner to being a chief?" she asked him quizzically.

"Oh that. Well, I am not actually chief. Big Guy is actually the chief. I'm just the new God to them. Funny how that works out," she raised an eyebrow at this, and he shook his head before sinking into the chair across from her.

"Alright, I'll tell you. Basically, I apparently have the same face as their deity of some sort. They have a picture of some cat that looks exactly like me somewhere, don't know where. Oh, and I still haven't really figured out the language myself, so most of this is just me drawing the lines between the dots. They may just be fattening me up to eat me, I don't really know," he chuckled a little at the thought, although there was a bit of genuine fear in his eyes.

"Are they cannibals?" Nicole asked him.

"Yeah, a little bit. More of a human sacrifice thing that they brought from some really ancient society. They take someone, usually an enemy or wanderer, every full moon and ritualistically kill them and drain them of blood while they are still alive," he grimaced at the thought, "I have seen some pretty weird things, and this isn't even the weirdest, but I still don't like it. And they make me preside over the ceremony,"

"So anyway, after the person is dead, they cut them up into little bits, and make sure everyone gets a bit. I'm a god, so I am safe from that. I'm no White Glove," he shivered a little. If anything had ever scared him other than the girl sitting across from him, it had been the White Glove's and their creepy cannibal-ness.

"Speaking as the one who got rid of Mortimer, I know what you mean," she said. The White Glove's had enough creepy and weird issues without throwing a return to cannibalism into the mix.

"Did you doll? That's great! But anyway, they made me their god and here I am, attended by a bunch of weirdo couks wearing dresses," he chuckled at the thought of the weird attire that his guards wore. Nicole did as well a little.

"I thought you were too straight to go after that sort of thing; at least when there are women around," she said.

"Alright, so that's me, how about Vegas? How is my baby running my baby?" he asked her, his grin having returned. She then set about telling him everything that had happened since he had left the area. He had been surprised at the alliances she had forged, especially with the Brotherhood and the Boomers, and even more so with the Enclave remnants. Her defeat of the Legion and the retreat of the NCR had pleased him as well, and he had asked many details about the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, and the details from the treaty, which Nicole happened to have on her Pip-Boy that the tribals hadn't been able to take off of her arm.

About halfway through, he had pulled out a cigarette, and offered her one as well. She didn't really like the things, but took one anyway.

And so, with the smoke floating about their heads, she had finished her story.

"Well, pussycat, I don't think even I could have done better with Vegas. You may have done a few things that I wouldn't have, but most of those are things that I wouldn't have survived anyway. You really got your whole brain ripped out of you noggin? Really? Wow,"

"Yeah, and it was more then a little upset with me for how I went about dealing with you," she said quietly. Benny sighed when she said this, and tosses the last bit of his cigarette into a nearby ashtray.

"Look doll, you know why I shot you right? I couldn't leave any witnesses that weren't on my payroll. That's just how the wasteland goes, you dig? You could have been working for House, and would have blabbed straight to him if I had let you go. I had no idea you were just an ordinary courier. Even if I did, I probably still would have had to kill you," he seemed like he was trying to placate her.

"Benny, shut up," she sighed and rubbed at her eyes. There was still some dried blood on them, and some of it flaked off while she rubbed. "I know why you did it. And after a few weeks of going across the wasteland, most of my desire to rip your face off had faded. It was gone by the time I found you in the Tops. I sort of halfheartedly wanted to kill you when we made it to your room, but then I just sort of gave in. I wanted to have a good, long talk in the morning and then you were gone again," he twitched again when she paused. He seemed to think that she had only hunted him down a third time to finally finish what he had started. She shook her head at him.

"No Benny, I am not going to kill you. I really don't have any reason too. I do want to offer you something though,"

"Is it your heart pussycat? Because you have already had mine,"

"You know how I just said I didn't want to kill you?" she asked him. He nodded his head blissfully. "Well keep saying things like that and I'll change my mind," He gulped a little when she said that, although whether or not he was actually afraid, or just playing along, she had no idea.

"Alright, what I want to offer you is a position back in Vegas."

His jaw would probably have hit the floor if his lap wasn't in the way.

"Wait, baby, you want me to go back to Vegas with you? Why?" he asked after he regained control over his jaw.

"Mostly, I want to find someone that can deal with the Three Families and help Arcade run the day to day while I go about doing what I do best. The plan is for you to basically oversee the Strip and keep the Families from killing each other. You will also help me out with talking to the crowds and other such political nonsense. I honestly can't talk to a large group like that. Kill them? Sure. Talk to them? Not so much," she shrugged at the end while keeping a straight expression. She needed him to come back and run the city. She would do almost anything to have him come back. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was the fact that he would never do anything to hurt Vegas, and by extension her. Well, not again anyway.

"So you want me to run the Strip?" he asked her for clarification. She nodded and he leaned back into his chair with an air of being overwhelmed.

"Well how could I say no to that! Back to the Strip..." he trailed of as he thought about it.

"So you'll do it?" she asked him, hardly daring to believe that her plan had worked so quickly. Albeit with a few bumps in the road.

"Sure baby? So, let's seal the deal," he said as he moved quickly over to her and wrapped his arms around her and pressed his body up against hers, tangling his lips together with her own as he did so. She was so surprised by the sudden action that for a moment she let the feel of another body's heat pressing against her take her away. Then she remembered what was happening when his hand slipped up her shirt and began to toy with her breast. Then she bit him. Hard.

Benny yelped and leaped back, although he still kept his legs to either side of her own, and began rubbing his now bleeding lip with his hands.

"Ow! What was that for doll?" he asked with the air of a kicked puppy.

"No more sex Benny! That's what that was for," she growled at him before she tried to extricate herself from his body.

"Oh come on doll, you had to have missed the Ben-man! Why else did you come find me? Don't you want me to be the King to your Queen?" he asked her.

"Because I knew that you were one of the few people with the charisma and intellect to actually be useful in the position?" she asked him while raising an eyebrow. Where did he get turn on from that? Oh wait, he was Benny.

"Well you have to at least have missed me enough to repeat our last little performance, you dig? Come on, the Ben-man missed you and those Charlie's of yours!" he was back to being plaintive, although the hardness she was feeling against her thigh told her a different story. Did she really have to sleep with him again to get him to come back? Ugh, she really did not want to do that.

"Seriously doll," he continued, "when is the last time you actually got laid?"

That actually made her seriously reconsider. She hadn't had sex with a man since that time with Boone in Bitter Springs, and he hadn't had sex for almost a year by that point, so it hadn't been the most memorable of times. He had forgotten how to do... well, everything. Aside from that, the last time she had been with anyone had been with Veronica the night before she left for the east coast. And with Veronica, well; they never actually _loved_ each other. They were basically friends who occasionally did a tumble in the sheets when they felt like it. And that had been well over a month ago...

When considering the fact that getting him to go back would be difficult, particularly if he found out about Sweetie's pregnancy, without some sort of direct short-term bargaining chip, her dignity could probably even stand it.

She decided, and clamped down on the front of his suit, pulling him back to her.

(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)

An hour later, she was snuggled up against the sweaty body of the man who had tried to kill her. Again. He was puffing away on one of his cigarettes that he had somehow managed to keep in supply.

"You really are a Ring-A-Ding broad, you know that right?" he said, flicking the butt away and probably onto the plush carpet next to the bed.

"Screw the lingo, Benny. Are you coming back to Vegas or not?"

"You know, I think that you may have persuaded me, in fact-"

While she had felt his hand drifting down her side again as he spoke, it wasn't some sort of sense of romanticism that stopped him.

It was the sudden appearance of a half-dozen of his awkwardly dressed guards that halted him.

"Oh shi-" he muttered as they all released a simultaneous ululation of (what sounded to her anyway) of rage. Considering the expressions on their faces, she probably wasn't wrong.

Shifting to sit up in the bed with the sheet preserving her modesty (for all she cared. These men were dressed in wedding dresses), she looked at Benny as he began to try to talk the natives down in their own language.

"What's their problem?" she whispered to him.

He grimaced and waved a hand at her absently, something she normally would have gotten more then slightly mad about, if it wasn't for the sudden icy tendril of fear slinking down her back. What was wrong?

After a brief conversation between Benny and the tribals, they, still scowling with anger, ran outside the tent. A moment later, their howl began anew, and more voices added to it.

"Benny, what's going-"

"No time dollface," he said quickly, jumping from the bed to scrounge for his discarded suit. Taking the cue that not all was well, she followed suit. While they put their cloths back on, he tersely explained what had happened.

"The tribal finks here see me as their god on earth right? Well they just walked in and found me in bed with a woman. So, you have basically tainted me, and now they need to perform a ritual cleansing by fire right? Well, I'm not really a god now am I? So I'll be incinerated, and they will realize that they've been duped for months now. So we need to get out of town now,"

"So now the whole village is going to try to kill us?" she asked him, fear leaking into her voice. She was good, but there were _thousands_ of tribals out there and she had neither armor nor a weapon.

"Yep, looks like it. 'Specially since, because you tainted me, you will be the one they light on fire first to cook me," her eyes widened more and she paused in the act of attaching a spare belt about her waist. He gave her a grin with no actual humor behind it, and checked the ammo on his pistol before putting it back in it's holster and going through one of the wardrobes nearby, probably for more ammo. She was a little surprised to see him toss her a .45 pistol from the wardrobe, but she deftly caught it and the two clips behind it.

Well, she had a gun now, but twenty-one shots wouldn't really help all that much.

She checked the gun and saw that it was empty. Fourteen shots, great.

"S'better then nothing doll," he said as if reading her mind. She shrugged, loaded the gun and blew the brains out of the first screaming tribal to come charging into his god's de-sanctified bedroom.

_(Author's note: Alright, I have been receiving several messages about how I have been portraying the Brotherhood of Steel, so simply put, I want to say what is going on with them._

_The Mojave chapter is part of the confederacy, although they still mostly keep to themselves right now. They have been tearing through all of the tech that Nicole sends them from her adventures and working with the Think Tank (although they don't really know about Big MT, and have just been going off of the new stuff that Nicole brings from the Think Tank), so they are happy to have their tech to mess around with. Since Nicole has become a member of the Brotherhood, and they have become somewhat less reactionary, they are sort of working on being more like the East Coast Brotherhood. I.E. Not being complete and total jerks and helping local societies that are at least capable of self-sustainability._

_The East Coast Brotherhood will show up considerably later in the story (assuming I ever get that far) and the original chapters in California are currently debating whether or not they shall officially join the confederacy or not. At the moment, they are still like they have always been, and aren't keen to go away from the founder's principles, even when it is obvious that those were meant for a time when trying to help everyone would have just resulted in them overextending their resources._

_The Midwestern Brotherhood will probably not be appearing, or if they do, it will be after the point that I have thought things out to._

_So right, sorry about the wait. Oh, and you can also blame Skyrim and then the original ending of Mass Effect 3 effectively killing any desire to even think about Fallout._

_And no, to answer the question for anyone who cares, I am NOT happy with the extended cut, but I am much HAPPIER. ER._

_Another big reason that I got stumped a while ago, was that I'm not a smoker and couldn't think up the correct way of phrasing how someone smokes a cigarette. I finally just shrugged and put in 'puffing'. Pathetic right?_

_Alright, the author's notes are almost as long as the story._

_If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask them in a PM or review. Or if you want to point out mistakes, confusing sentences, or maybe even one or two of the good things about this story, you may do that as well in a review. Reviews are good. If you just want to yell at me for taking so long, well, you can do that too. Let's me know that someone cares I guess)._


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